Macau taps to a funkier beat

'It's raw, fast and furious. It's manly and sexy,' says dancer James Doubtfire. It's also grown men bouncing manically around a stage dressed as construction workers. But, before you think Village People, think instead the Chippendales meet Gene Kelly meets Cirque de Soleil - and half a dozen muscled hunks lighting up the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Dein Terry's Tap Dogs is perhaps the biggest international act at this year's Macau Arts Festival, which begins on Saturday. And after the five intense and rarified weeks of the Hong Kong Arts Festival, it may come as a relief to many.

Macau's festival is smaller, less serious and a lot funkier, with a focus on alternative culture and visually striking shows. There's such an emphasis on physicality that, alongside the usual music, dance and art exhibit categories, the 15th annual festival has one simply called body language.

There's plenty of that in Tap Dogs, a show that is a pure, pounding, visual spectacle. 'We use water. We tap-dance up and down ladders. There's upside-down tap-dancing - and I'm the one who does it,' says Doubtfire, who is also the show's director. 'I strap myself into a harness. The boys haul me up on ropes and spin me upside down. Then I tap-dance on a plate that's hung from the ceiling, while another dancer stands on the ground below doing the same routine.'

The 33-year-old London native baulks at the suggestion that people might just go to see their muscles. 'We've been compared with the Chippendales, but that's not what the show's about. We're not strippers,' he laughs.

Doubtfire, who's been dancing since he was three, says they're all professional dancers. 'The show was originally created to show people that tap dancing could be more than Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, top hat and tails. We want to get the younger generation into it.'

Tap Dogs have toured the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia and Japan, and came to world attention at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics. 'We've been to so many countries, but people basically always react the same way,' says Doubtfire. 'They just want to have fun.'