Reviving this custom, Wayne Eagling, English National Ballet's artistic director, has created Men Y Men for the company's male dancers. Set to Rachmaninoff, it gives nine men a chance to strut through signature jumps and turns. It also features some unusual partnering. The men can lift each other in turn, where male-female duets tend to stress the contrast in strength.

It makes an inventive opener, danced with gusto but dampened by the production. Eagling and Wizzy Shawyer dress the cast in black trousers, so their legs vanish against the dark backdrop. The disembodied torsos are clearly high off the ground, but you have to peer to see how they got up there.

These dramatic virtues still hold our attention and challenge interpreters. (And it is undeniably Giselle's ballet: I have seen only two danseurs who made a mark on the staging: Serge Lifar and Irek Mukhamedov, both the incarnation of Romanticism's ardours.) For the ballerina, there must be innocence, dramatic truth, technique that passes comprehension in lightness and spirituality. Mary Skeaping, who knew Giselle from her days with Pavlova, staged it for ENB in 1971. We recognised then as now merits of narrative clarity, sense of period, and the charm of David Walker's design - especially in the vapours and moonlight of his second-act forest, which invites mystery. Cuts in the score are opened and the Wili scene benefits, not least in the jolly little fugue for the night-dancers as they menace Giselle and Albrecht. (Adolphe Adam, who made the score, said of his ballet music: "I can't call it work: it is pure enjoyment.")

Chinese State Councilor Liu Yandong Monday urged the National Ballet of China to increase its global stature by creating lasting works that combine the artistic influences of both East and West. Liu said during a visit to the group that it had developed into a first-class troupe with numerous outstanding performers and quality works since its founding five decades ago.

That singular rapport with audiences defined his weekend return to the Harris Theater more than any of the interesting works he brought. Now 61, more angular than pristine, he still arouses a passion unseen anywhere else in the art.

And deservedly so. This collection of solos and a duet was by no means perfect. But, like so many Baryshnikov visits, it opened new windows onto the world of dance today. I've seen him partner with Alessandra Ferri, Gelsey Kirkland and Heather Watts, and this teamwork with Ana Laguna is right near the top.

In 1995 Cunxin joined the Australian Ballet as principal artist, moving here with his second wife, Mary McKendry, an Australian dancer he'd met in 1987. The couple has three children: Sophie, 20, Tom, 16, and Bridie, 11. But a ballet dancer's career doesn't last forever and at 34 he began to plan for a new career.

During his final two years with the Australian Ballet he studied accounting and finance by correspondence, rising at 5am for dance training before racing to the stock exchange. By the time he started ballet rehearsals he'd already put in a full day's work.