This stunning video will challenge all your preconceptions about ballet

22 May 2019, 17:46 | Updated: 16 June 2020, 15:15

Watch these striking ballet dancers revolutionise Ravel's Boléro

From basketball to breakdancing: don’t expect typical ballet in Hong Kong Ballet’s 40th season film.

We can’t stop watching this stunning new video, made in celebration of the Hong Kong Ballet’s upcoming 40th anniversary season by the creative agency Design Army.

The artists of the classical ballet company dance through a basketball court to the tune of Ravel’s Boléro, before the shot cuts to city views filmed in Hong Kong. Dressed in neon and pastel colours, the dancers’ movements are sharp and bold.

On designing the fresh new campaign, Design Army’s creative chief Pum Lefubre said: “The art direction of the film in many ways grew out of the architecture... It has a distinct characteristic and colour with cotton-candy-like pastels bright against the sky. Out of this grew production design and even sound...

“Design Army sketched every piece, and these sketches became our bible. We were juggling conversations with the choreographer, the director, stylists, music designers and prop stylists – and also in talks with the client on how to break through and do something bigger, to bring in humour, to push further in making this accessible.”

It seems we aren’t the only ones who can’t stop watching it...