Sergei Polunin & Natalia Osipova to Perform in SYMPHONY TO A LOST GENERATION at LSO St Luke's

Royal Ballet Principal Natalia Osipova and 'bad boy of ballet' Sergei Polunin will dance the principal roles in the first movement of virtuoso young composer Adam Donen's epic Symphony to a Lost Generation , the world's first feature-length fully holographic dramatic production, a moving depiction of the human tragedy of the First World War. The production premieres at LSO St Luke's from the 28-31 May. Polunin and Osipova will be dancing together at Sadler's Wells in June.

Donen's symphony charts the transition from pre-War tonality to post-War dissonance, returning to tonality in the work's final (fifth) movement. Polunin and Osipova play doomed lovers in the first movement, a traditional 19th century sonata, but soon hints of Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Chopin's waltzes are drowned out in a landscape of horror. This is echoed by the dance, which begins with a balletic idyll before making use of butoh, a Japanese "dance of death-in-life", to depict the lives of those caught in No Man's Land.

Adam Donen said of working with Polunin and Osipova: Sergei and Natalia's portrayal of tender and innocent lovers has a purity and honesty that could only be achieved by the greatest couple ballet has produced in a century, which they are, dancing with one another. This tenderness makes Sergei's doomed and heroic descent all the grander, and makes the transition from ballet to butoh all the more brutal. In other times, I might have dreamed of being able to harness Kurt Cobain's intensity, or Rembrandt's perfection of form. Sergei and Natalia, within the balletic form, surpass both.

Holograms have been used to bring Michael Jackson back to life and allowed Kate Moss to spend a month as part of the Alexander McQueen exhibition: never have they formed the basis of a full stage production until now. Holograms give the illusion of live stage performance, and allow modes of story-telling never before possible in theatres - a truly original hybrid art form, different from 3D cinema on the one hand and from live performance on the other. This is the first time the technology has ever been used on this scale to unify technologies and classical art-forms - music, dance, drama and film.

As well as Sergei Polunin and Natalia Osipova, and the Bollywood superstar Shekhar Ravjiani who plays an Indian soldier, the 400-strong cast list for Symphony to a Lost Generation reads like a roll call of some of the greatest talents performing in the world today: the Vienna Philharmonic Choir, Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Grammy-winning New London

Children's Choir, Russian soprano Yana Ivanilova (widely considered Russia's greatest living chamber soprano), prizewinning conductor Martynas Staškus, Ernesto Tomasini and legendary butoh choreographer Minako Seki.

The production has also harnessed the skills of two extraordinary creative talents: visual director Mikael Jaeger Jensen,whose credits include Effects Coordinator on Oscar-winning films including 'Avatar' and 'Gravity', and one of the world's foremost music producers, Robert Harder. Aside from his Grammy-nominated work with David Byrne and Brian Eno,Harder has worked with both Kylie Minogue and Herbie Hancock.

South African-born Adam Donen is a composer, librettist, and director. Like Elgar and Schoenberg, Donen is a self taught composer. Recent major works include The Bernhard Suite (a 1 hour suite for string orchestra and piano premiered by the world renowned Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn) and Dorian (a libretto for Russian State Ballet). Donen has also released three albums of songs, performed across Europe, written and directed a sell out site-specific puppet opera and lectured at venues including Tate Britain and RADA.

Need more UK Regional Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...