Sadler's Wells samba party

Infectious is not a word you can overuse when it comes to describing Brasil Brasileiro.

The samba dance show has so much good cheer, so much optimism and energy, and such jumping, bubbling allure that you'll go from desk duty to Latin groover before you can say torch songs be damned. So much better to torch the songs, cut the rugs, and jitter those bugs, all of which you'll be doing five minutes into this exuberant show.

You'll also be wishing you could growl like the singers, improv like the musicians, and twirl, shimmy and shake like the fleet-footed dancers whose legs are truly sensational. Brasil Brasileiro is the work of Claudio Segovia, the director bestknown for his show Tango Argentino that earned an Olivier Award nomination in 1991.

His new two-hour piece tells the story of Brazilian samba, and its journey from the Congo to modern-day Rio street carnival.

It is, of course, also the story of European settlers and African slaves, although that suggests plot and narrative and, perhaps, more weighty themes than the show conveys. Instead, Brasil Brasileiro is an unabashed song and dance pleaser, with the music and moves telling their own story.

There are, I counted, 33 song and dance numbers that track samba from the batuque, a dance still close to its origins in Angola and Congo, to the choro, which blends Portuguese melodies with African rhythms, and the bossa-nova, literally a "new wave" that emerged in the Fifties and combines samba with jazz.

Along the way we see the mock urban combat of capoeira, plus the harder-edged inflexions of hip-hop.

There's also samba's lightning-fast modern-day dance hall incarnation that manages to be sexy, precise and rag-taggity all at the same time.

Describing the best bits would mean describing the whole show, but high points include Tereza Azevedo, Ivi Mesquita and Pamella Vidal in Mulata Assanhada, a sweet, sexy strut across the stage with singer Elza Soares belting out her gravelly best.

Also good was Adriana Lima in the flirty Chorando se Foi; while James Damiao and Elaine Lucia shone in Baiao, a dazzling fast-paced duet, with Elaine somehow circling her pelvis and shoulders in opposite directions while skipping her pretty heels.

However, Brasil Brasileiro is an ensemble show, with all seven singers, 17 musicians and 28 dancers performing their socks off. What makes them so special is that they are entirely themselves. Wisely, Segovia makes no attempt to turn them into "characters", with political or social messages.

Instead, they do what they dazzle at. The men are handsome and amorous, and the women groove away in tight slips of Lycra, high heels and wide smiles.