LITHE BODIES GLIDE across a rehearsal room floor worn smooth by the ballet slippers of generations of dancers. Slender girls are lifted gracefully by muscular boys: all is poised, controlled, delicate. The moves are ballet at its most beautiful, performed by one of the world's highest regarded companies. The music is, by comparison, angular and throbbing.
Where the hollow drone of a piano would fill the room with the sweeping arcs of Tchaikovsky or Offenbach, the dancers of the renowned American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in New York are now rehearsing to the amplified boom of a CD player belting out simplistic, three-chord pop.
The ABT is taking a dramatic leap into the unknown for its autumn season, casting off for a while its usual fare of classical compositions in favour of one of rock's mystics, George Harrison.
A Tribute To George Harrison is the ABT's highlight performance in a short season of new works that began last week.
Seeking the sublime from the former Beatle's oft-ignored repertoire, ABT enlisted the help of renowned choreographers Natalie Weir, David Parsons, Ann Reinking and Stanton Welch to give substance to its vision of a homage to the rock legend, who died of cancer last December.
Harrison was always considered the quiet Beatle, living and playing in the shadow of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In recent years, however, there has been something of a reassessment of his contribution to the band. Not only did he compose some of the Beatles' most memorable songs - including the evergreen Something and Here Comes The Sun - but he also gave the band its distinctive guitar sound. And through his devotion to Eastern spirituality he introduced the sitar to the Beatles' sound - a move that is widely regarded as one of the most innovative in the history of rock music.