Nutcracker for boys

When you catch sight of a cool duck rolling on skateshoes across the stage, it's pretty clear that this latest version of Peter And The Wolf is a far cry from the instant classic Prokofiev premiered in Moscow 70 years ago. But with US choreographer Doug Elkins making the moves, it was never going to be a chocolate box fairytale.

Elkins has made his mark with a dynamic mix of street dance, capoeira and martial arts that turned his company into a crossover hit in Europe and America. A restless innovator, he talks as quickly as his dancers dance, peppering his conversation with as many references as his manic hybrid choreography does.

'What do I do? It's movement theatre, it's dance, it's whatever you want to call it,' he says. 'I like the way Jean Cocteau described great literature as being a dictionary in disarray. That's the way dance and steps are. You break them up and put them together again.'

Happily utilising everything from the Harlem Shuffle to contact improvisation to bring Peter And The Wolf to life, Elkins says the last thing he wanted to do was simply ape the original animal characters on stage. 'I have to keep checking on myself that I'm not just making music visualisation.'

That danger is sidestepped in part, in that this Peter And The Wolf has been opened up to turn it into a full-length show.

Prokofiev's perennial favourite, which doubles as a guide to the orchestra and a childhood fable, clocks in at 28min. This new American production, which has its world premiere in Hackney but has designs on the global stage, comes complete with a 50min prequel, which makes up Act One.

Writer Lori Spee is quick to point out that Prokofiev's original work stays intact. 'What we've done is create characters, a set of children, to flesh out the story. It's about expanding on those characters - it's not about expanding on Peter And The Wolf.'

With the action opening in a school classroom, the new story centres around a young boy and his classmates, who morph into their animal equivalents in Act Two.

So the girl who dreams of flying becomes the bird, a boy who loves playing in water gets to be a duck and in the middle of it all is Jack, a universal symbol of recognising our demons and facing up to them.

'I'm suspicious of moral fables for children,' Elkins says. 'It's the story that's important. I see Peter And The Wolf as a kind of Nutcracker for boys. In the way that Clara has a vision of the woman she's going to become, so Jack sees the man he could be in the future. To do that he has to face up to the Wolf.'