You can look at this visiting Chinese production two ways. You can bemoan the loss of dramatic momentum and poetic sentiment familiar from most traditional Swan Lakes. Or you can submit wholeheartedly to its stunning originality and sensational circus prowess. I choose the latter.

This is the production in which Siegfried, instead of wandering off to hunt swans, runs off to join Cirque du Soleil. Only this is way better than anything the Las Vegas veterans have to offer. The Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China recasts Tchaikovsky’s great ballet as a backdrop to an eye-watering display of exuberant physicality and jaw-dropping determination to push the body beyond its accepted limits. This is a Swan Lake peopled by pole balancers, tumblers, jugglers, contortionists, high-wire artists, stilt-walkers in pointe shoes and swans on roller skates.

Another swan walks a tightrope on pointe – now there’s a trick you don’t see very often – and even simple effects, such as women in billowing blue fabric pretending to be waves, are wonderfully effective. Time speeds by as one awesome feat is surpassed by the next, each and every one performed with utter jubilation and fearless bravery.

There is a plot, though with so much energy bursting out all over the stage there isn’t much time for rich drama. A European Prince dreams of a Chinese maiden who has been turned into a swan by the Black Eagle. The Prince travels the world to free her from this evil spell. Along the way he’s duped by the Black Eagle into betraying his beloved. But this is a happy Swan Lake, and the Prince is finally united with his Princess, just in time for a colourful wedding in the Forbidden City.

The sets and costumes offer a breathtaking cornucopia of visual splendour. The score is recorded, alas, but perhaps when timing is so crucial the performers need predictability in their music. Be they dancing on their hands or juggling like demons, everything is done in time to Tchaikovsky.

Zhao Ming’s choreography blends lyrical ballet and audacious acrobatics and surely there can be no one in the world quite like Wu Zhengdan, who combines both within her tiny body. Lovely and heartbreaking as the Swan-Princess, she takes Odette’s white scenes into another dimension altogether.

As the Prince, Wei Baohua seems stranded amid the circus turns until he meets his Princess and then you realise why he’s there. Wei must be the strongest man on earth. More than once he supports her entire body weight on his shoulder and, for their final trick, Wu balances on one leg, on pointe, on top of Wei’s head. Both of them are as rock solid as marble. I have never seen anything like it.

Box office: 020-7304 4000, to Sun. Then Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, Aug 13-16 2008

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