It is, of course, the sequel to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, the spy-movie spoof with more sight gags and smutty jokes than Austin has hairs on his very bushy chest. Now the movement is more fluent and sensuous; we are meant to think of fish which, a programme note tells us, represent unborn souls. Their dances are tentative, even subservient; at one point they crawl about on hands and knees, which may be meant to suggest some kind of animal life, but not obviously so.The second half, evoking seas and rivers, brings the dancers together in duets and ensembles, although still with some solos. Other ochre colours, through to a deep red, are used in the make-up.

This natural powder is not only a symbol of the earth, but also used as a medicine, so its significance in the action is twofold.During this first half, the five women enter only when the men are away. One of them, Djakapurra Munyarryun, apparently older than the other dancers and markedly much larger, carries a weapon which he handles with playful ease. He is also, in spite of his bulk, the most striking mover of them all.He also smears white ochre powder on his chest and face at the beginning and spills some in a pattern on the floor, which later gets spread around and on to the dancers’ clothes. In the first, the dances move separately, apparently enacting secret rituals. Three men, abrupt and aggressive, suggest some kind of abstruse threat.

And the present show, The Dreaming, looks back to Australian pre-history when, according to Aboriginal belief, spirits roamed free over the land and the waters.
Another of the Page family, David, is responsible for the score, for me the least rewarding part: sometimes evocative of wild life or primitive Australian instruments, but mixed with a fashionable, presumably synthesised sound that flattens the effect.Two elements, dry and wet, govern the contrasted halves of The Dreaming. It has established itself to the point where its director, Stephen Page, recently choreographed Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring for a mixed cast of his own dancers and those of the Australian ballet. How’s that for jumping the gun?

But in a more serious sense, timelessness is the theme of the evening. The company was set up 10 years ago to combine traditional rituals and myths of Australia’s Aboriginal and Islander people with modern dance and music. In either case, it really isn’t fair.`Notes from a Big Country’, Doubleday, pounds 16.99. FORGET THE millennium.