Voyages of silken imagination

Marco Polo, the Imaginary Voyage, a modern ballet produced by French fashion icon Pierre Cardin, will make its world premiere in Beijing tonight.

Choreographed by former stars of the Paris Opera Ballet, Marie-Claude Pietragalla and Julien Derouault, the ballet is a virtuoso spectacle fusing hip-hop dance with modern and classical ballet, orchestrated in a choreography of fearsome energy, offbeat grace, occasional wit and chronometrical precision.

It takes audiences to a dreamlike and fantasized universe, where dancing and other motion on stage conjure an alluring specter of the imaginary.