Rugged island dwellers they may be, but residents of Stewart Island are about to get a rare injection of high culture and they can't wait.
The Royal New Zealand Ballet company dancers are packing their tutus alongside their thermals for their first-ever visit to the wilds of the
southern island this weekend.
A lack of facilities on the island will preclude a full-scale show but six dancers will give a taste of the company's repertoire at the island's community centre.
While the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of many of the 450 islanders may appear incompatible with an outing to the ballet, company artistic director Gary Harris thinks it will be well received.
"Who knows, [islanders may] go down and shoot ballet dancers," he says.
"We are just looking forward to going for the first time. I think the people who are going to come will want to come and see us, so they are already on our side hopefully. We're not going into a war zone."
The company toured the nearest mainland town of Invercargill regularly and islanders would often travel across Foveaux Strait to see the shows.
Among them is arts lover Gwen Neave, who helped convince the company to make the trip to the country's southern extreme.
"It's going to be wonderful."
She admits many of the island's men would much prefer to be in the great outdoors, but "those blokes often have families".
"And they have wives and children who mightn't have been able to visit the mainland to see a traditional ballet production."
Islander Aaron Conner said the ballet was "not really down my alley" but there would be people who would find it entertaining.
Local community board chairman Barry Rhodes said the island's population, that once revolved around fishing, was now a "very well-rounded community" that would embrace the ballet.
"We have a number of people that have elected to live on Stewart Island who are very, very culturally minded. Had they not elected to live [here] and lived in Auckland, they would be attending the ballet and concerts and the symphony orchestra and various other things."
A week after the performance on Stewart Island, the ballet company will hold a show at Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands.
