Dancers with Shanghai Ballet rehearse for its new production, Inspire III: Fragments of Memory. The ballet will likely present the show on May 8 to an empty theater if the Shanghai International Dance Center isn't able to open in time for the new season as scheduled.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Wu created the piece together with Kunqu artist Zhang Ting from the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Theater. The original Kunqu Opera Peony Pavilion tells the story of a young woman who falls in love with a man she met in her dreams. In the ballet adaptation, Wu will portray a modern young man in a dreamworld where he is intrigued by an ancient Chinese woman played by Zhang Ting, an artist with the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Theater.

Veteran Kunqu artist Zhang Jingxian watched the rehearsal and says: "I was not sure about the idea of a crossover because both ballet and Kunqu are art forms with strong characteristics. But now I see that the two can be fused without losing their respective flavors and rich emotional expressions."

The other two programs in the production are Black, Blue and Purple, a one-act ballet jointly created by Wu Husheng and Chen Qi, and Home of the Past, created by Wang Hao, with music from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, rearranged by Max Richter.