THE din in the crowded room was approaching fever pitch.
It was lunchtime and actors, dancers, workers had filed into the cafeteria for the midday break.
Toward the back of the room, away from the general melee, sat a man many consider to be one of Australia's hottest new stars. He's not only hot, they say, he's very hot.
Paul Mercurio dancer, choreographer, actor and all-round nice guy nestled back on a couch, smiling at the young lady in his arms. She stared back at him big, blue eyes peeking out from under glossy, dark hair.
Six-month-old Emily was happy, lips clasped around her bottle, sucking away contentedly.
Add husband and father to those credits. His wife, Andrea Toy, a former principal dancer with Sydney Dance Company and the Australian Ballet, was teaching dance at the Wharf Theatre. Daughter Elise, two, was at kindergarten. Paul, between rehearsals at the Opera House for his new Sydney Dance Company work, Edgeing , was left holding the baby. It's hardly the image of an up-and-coming sex symbol, but family reigns supreme for Mercurio, 29.
"My family is really important to me," he said. "I don't want to miss out on any of it. It is something that I very much love and want to enjoy and experience." These days, Mercurio, with his velvet brown eyes, olive skin, muscled body, slightly rugged looks, is in constant demand. Time with his family has become even more precious.
Not only is he in demand as a dancer and choreographer this week he is flying out to the Cannes Film Festival to help promote the Australian movie Strictly Ballroom , his first acting foray in feature films. The movie has already caused a stir, both here and abroad.
In Cannes, it has been selected for the special midnight screening, an honour given to only two films a year.
After the movie was given a test screening in Sydney, Mercurio walked out of the cinema to be mobbed by a horde of teenage girls wanting to get close to Australia's newest film star. He is happy that the attention will ensure more of the work he loves, but being a "star" is a bit hard to take.
However, this disarmingly honest, straight-talking man knows it is all part of the package, a game he has to play if he wants to fulfil his dreams.
"In a way it excites me because it means people are paying attention to what's happening and they're excited by what I'm trying to do," he said. "That's so important because if people aren't excited then I'm not going to be able to do it. I need people to buy the tickets to come and see things, I need sponsors, I need an audience, I need the fans, I need all of that. "But I'm not a star," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm just Paul Mercurio, who has a family, changes nappies, has an interest in beer, wants to choreograph, wants to get into all sorts of things. "I'm just doing what I want to do. I'm very lucky that I can follow that, that I can do it and that I'm surrouded by people who support that." A member of the Sydney Dance Company for just on 11 years now, Mercurio is soon to leave the familiar confines and branch out on his own.
First, though, comes Edgeing for the Sydney Dance Company, which premieres on May 27. It is a work in which he has married contemporary dance with the in- line skating craze. It is something Mercurio has wanted to do for a long time. He fell in love with ice-skating a while ago and thought it would be great to bring the flowing movement of skating to the dance stage. Things haven't been flowing all that smoothly at rehearsals, though. Of the five dancers on skates he started out with, only one Mercurio has survived without injury. But the production is now back on schedule.
In July, he starts work for his new company, the Australian Choreographic Ensemble (ACE) a project he has been planning for many years. Now he is impatient for it to come to fruition.
"I had a dream to start a company, a full-time company, and hopefully, as the title suggests, it will be an ensemble effort," he said. "We'll promote and develop Australian choreogrpahers." Wife Andrea will be his assistant, and eventually she hopes to dance as well. At the moment everything's happening extremely fast. "I'm getting letters, phone calls and videos from people overseas and from all over Australia saying that they'd heard about what I was doing and that they'd really love to join," he said.
Mercurio wants to keep ACE small, maybe six dancers, and take it to places that don't usually get the chance to see dance. But he hopes that starting his own outfit won't mean severing links with the Sydney Dance Company.
"ACE means I stop being a dancer with the Sydney Dance Company but I would hate to think that we'd cut ties completely. It's been such a wonderful, profitable and creative association and I don't want to lose that," he said. "Working with Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon for the past 11 years, there's a lot of wonderful experiences and influences there it's a real melting pot. "I just think this is the next natural step for me. I've sort of grown up. It's a very, very natural progression. "I've actually got up to 1994 planned out with ACE. You've got to be organised. But I feed off the challenge I throw a lot of energy into it."
The son of tough-guy actor and one-time boxing champion Gus Mercurio and his second wife, Jean, Paul moved to Perth with his mother, two brothers and sister after his parents separated. It was there that he took his first dance step, following in his sister's footsteps.
At nine he asked his mother if he could take ballet classes too and, although surprised, she agreed. From his first moment on stage, young Paul felt at home.
"We did ballet and concerts, tap and jazz, and theatrical dancing," Mercurio said. "We put on ballet concerts at the end of each year at the Fremantle Town Hall. All the mums and friends would come and we'd be singing and tapping. That was where I played my first prince. "I liked the feeling of being on stage. I was a bit nervous when I had to play the prince because it was the first time I had to wear tights," he said, chuckling. "But I thoroughly enjoyed the performing aspects of it all." Although he is close to his famous father, they rarely see each other. "I haven't spoken to him since about January," said Mercurio. "I just haven't had the time." But the whole family is fairly close. Dad lives in Melbourne. Mum and my sister and brother live in Perth, and another brother is in Sydney. "Even though we don't see a lot of each other, when we do get together we catch up pretty quickly, we cover a lot of ground." He surfs, rides a motorbike and spends time with wife Andrea and their two daughters.
And then there is his passion for beer and tattoos.
"I'm a beer fanatic," Mercurio said. "I brew beer. I've got two kits at home and I'm going to get a third. "It's my dream at 50," he laughed, "that I'll be a director of ACE for 10 years and then close it down and let someone else take over. At 50, I'm going to buy premises and get a brew pub. "It's a dream, so who knows if I'll do it. But at the moment, that's sort of where I think I'd like to be. Living in a nice, little country town, where the kids can grow up in the fresh air. I can brew beer and still do a few ballets here and there."
And what of the tattoos? Suddenly Mercurio is a little cagey. Yes, he does have a passion for tattoos, loves them in fact. And yes, he does have one or two, well, two exactly. But, no, he won't say what they are.
"Oh, differnet things. I'm not going to say," he said, smiling. "I've got one here," he said, pointing to his lower hip, "I'm a dancer and I don't know what this part of the body's called. And I've got one on my ankle. I quite like them as an art form. I'd like one day to do a work with body painting, with dancers all body painted and set into quite a sculptured set." For now, though, there's not a lot of time for new projects.
With Edgeing pushing towards its opening date, and ACE not too far away, Mercurio has more than enough on his hands.
"At the moment I'm working about 32 hours a day as a dancer for the Sydney Dance Company, as a choreographer, starting out ACE, and then fining time to spend with my family," he said. "You can easily get swallowed up in the excitement of starting something new, and you end up coming home tired and not wainting to talk, or do the dishes or put out the garbage. You have to find the right balance.
"It's interesting now for me because I think there are so many avenues I could take, it's sort of hard to slow down."
Toward the back of the room, away from the general melee, sat a man many consider to be one of Australia's hottest new stars. He's not only hot, they say, he's very hot.
Paul Mercurio dancer, choreographer, actor and all-round nice guy nestled back on a couch, smiling at the young lady in his arms. She stared back at him big, blue eyes peeking out from under glossy, dark hair.
Six-month-old Emily was happy, lips clasped around her bottle, sucking away contentedly.
Add husband and father to those credits. His wife, Andrea Toy, a former principal dancer with Sydney Dance Company and the Australian Ballet, was teaching dance at the Wharf Theatre. Daughter Elise, two, was at kindergarten. Paul, between rehearsals at the Opera House for his new Sydney Dance Company work, Edgeing , was left holding the baby. It's hardly the image of an up-and-coming sex symbol, but family reigns supreme for Mercurio, 29.
"My family is really important to me," he said. "I don't want to miss out on any of it. It is something that I very much love and want to enjoy and experience." These days, Mercurio, with his velvet brown eyes, olive skin, muscled body, slightly rugged looks, is in constant demand. Time with his family has become even more precious.
Not only is he in demand as a dancer and choreographer this week he is flying out to the Cannes Film Festival to help promote the Australian movie Strictly Ballroom , his first acting foray in feature films. The movie has already caused a stir, both here and abroad.
In Cannes, it has been selected for the special midnight screening, an honour given to only two films a year.
After the movie was given a test screening in Sydney, Mercurio walked out of the cinema to be mobbed by a horde of teenage girls wanting to get close to Australia's newest film star. He is happy that the attention will ensure more of the work he loves, but being a "star" is a bit hard to take.
However, this disarmingly honest, straight-talking man knows it is all part of the package, a game he has to play if he wants to fulfil his dreams.
"In a way it excites me because it means people are paying attention to what's happening and they're excited by what I'm trying to do," he said. "That's so important because if people aren't excited then I'm not going to be able to do it. I need people to buy the tickets to come and see things, I need sponsors, I need an audience, I need the fans, I need all of that. "But I'm not a star," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm just Paul Mercurio, who has a family, changes nappies, has an interest in beer, wants to choreograph, wants to get into all sorts of things. "I'm just doing what I want to do. I'm very lucky that I can follow that, that I can do it and that I'm surrouded by people who support that." A member of the Sydney Dance Company for just on 11 years now, Mercurio is soon to leave the familiar confines and branch out on his own.
First, though, comes Edgeing for the Sydney Dance Company, which premieres on May 27. It is a work in which he has married contemporary dance with the in- line skating craze. It is something Mercurio has wanted to do for a long time. He fell in love with ice-skating a while ago and thought it would be great to bring the flowing movement of skating to the dance stage. Things haven't been flowing all that smoothly at rehearsals, though. Of the five dancers on skates he started out with, only one Mercurio has survived without injury. But the production is now back on schedule.
In July, he starts work for his new company, the Australian Choreographic Ensemble (ACE) a project he has been planning for many years. Now he is impatient for it to come to fruition.
"I had a dream to start a company, a full-time company, and hopefully, as the title suggests, it will be an ensemble effort," he said. "We'll promote and develop Australian choreogrpahers." Wife Andrea will be his assistant, and eventually she hopes to dance as well. At the moment everything's happening extremely fast. "I'm getting letters, phone calls and videos from people overseas and from all over Australia saying that they'd heard about what I was doing and that they'd really love to join," he said.
Mercurio wants to keep ACE small, maybe six dancers, and take it to places that don't usually get the chance to see dance. But he hopes that starting his own outfit won't mean severing links with the Sydney Dance Company.
"ACE means I stop being a dancer with the Sydney Dance Company but I would hate to think that we'd cut ties completely. It's been such a wonderful, profitable and creative association and I don't want to lose that," he said. "Working with Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon for the past 11 years, there's a lot of wonderful experiences and influences there it's a real melting pot. "I just think this is the next natural step for me. I've sort of grown up. It's a very, very natural progression. "I've actually got up to 1994 planned out with ACE. You've got to be organised. But I feed off the challenge I throw a lot of energy into it."
The son of tough-guy actor and one-time boxing champion Gus Mercurio and his second wife, Jean, Paul moved to Perth with his mother, two brothers and sister after his parents separated. It was there that he took his first dance step, following in his sister's footsteps.
At nine he asked his mother if he could take ballet classes too and, although surprised, she agreed. From his first moment on stage, young Paul felt at home.
"We did ballet and concerts, tap and jazz, and theatrical dancing," Mercurio said. "We put on ballet concerts at the end of each year at the Fremantle Town Hall. All the mums and friends would come and we'd be singing and tapping. That was where I played my first prince. "I liked the feeling of being on stage. I was a bit nervous when I had to play the prince because it was the first time I had to wear tights," he said, chuckling. "But I thoroughly enjoyed the performing aspects of it all." Although he is close to his famous father, they rarely see each other. "I haven't spoken to him since about January," said Mercurio. "I just haven't had the time." But the whole family is fairly close. Dad lives in Melbourne. Mum and my sister and brother live in Perth, and another brother is in Sydney. "Even though we don't see a lot of each other, when we do get together we catch up pretty quickly, we cover a lot of ground." He surfs, rides a motorbike and spends time with wife Andrea and their two daughters.
And then there is his passion for beer and tattoos.
"I'm a beer fanatic," Mercurio said. "I brew beer. I've got two kits at home and I'm going to get a third. "It's my dream at 50," he laughed, "that I'll be a director of ACE for 10 years and then close it down and let someone else take over. At 50, I'm going to buy premises and get a brew pub. "It's a dream, so who knows if I'll do it. But at the moment, that's sort of where I think I'd like to be. Living in a nice, little country town, where the kids can grow up in the fresh air. I can brew beer and still do a few ballets here and there."
And what of the tattoos? Suddenly Mercurio is a little cagey. Yes, he does have a passion for tattoos, loves them in fact. And yes, he does have one or two, well, two exactly. But, no, he won't say what they are.
"Oh, differnet things. I'm not going to say," he said, smiling. "I've got one here," he said, pointing to his lower hip, "I'm a dancer and I don't know what this part of the body's called. And I've got one on my ankle. I quite like them as an art form. I'd like one day to do a work with body painting, with dancers all body painted and set into quite a sculptured set." For now, though, there's not a lot of time for new projects.
With Edgeing pushing towards its opening date, and ACE not too far away, Mercurio has more than enough on his hands.
"At the moment I'm working about 32 hours a day as a dancer for the Sydney Dance Company, as a choreographer, starting out ACE, and then fining time to spend with my family," he said. "You can easily get swallowed up in the excitement of starting something new, and you end up coming home tired and not wainting to talk, or do the dishes or put out the garbage. You have to find the right balance.
"It's interesting now for me because I think there are so many avenues I could take, it's sort of hard to slow down."
by Karen Spresser
Hobart Mercury
16 May 1992
