TWENTY-EIGHT elite gymnasts from the National Danish Performance Team livened up Civic Square on Saturday morning with dance routines and a bit of juggling.

While choreographers Emil Smedegaard Tine Krog warmed them up, team manager Anders Laier Højer explained to members of public that the team had just arrived in Australia from performing  in Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

He said they would spend Christmas in Australia to “inspiring people to a more active lifestyle” before heading to Mexico.

Højer said that the athletes were gathered together every two years to create a touring company that would travel the world for about six months and that with a variety of gymnastic, dance and even circus skills, they were also used to performing in non-theatre  venues.

They are being hosted by the Woden Valley Gymnastics Club, working with the Danish Embassy and Canberra Theatre Centre and Naomi Nye from the Gymnastics Club said they would be joined in performing tomorrow by local gymnasts.

Julia Pucci, project director for the Canberra Theatre Development, took the opportunity to talk up the past and present of the theatre centre, which she said had originally been built for a city of just 85,000, but was now looking ahead to a new 2000 seat lyric theatre behind The Playhouse.

The Danish connection, she explained, is that one of the three lead architects for the design is the Copenhagen firm Henning Lassen Architects.

Danish ambassador Pernille Dahler Kardel was happy to support Pucci’s proposition idea that the new theatre would create a “national landmark” likely to transform the cultural face of Canberra.

A second performance by the National Danish Performance Team will take place in the Southern Cross Stadium, Tuggeranong, Sunday December 3, 9.30-11.30am.