Ballet dancers perform a duet on London canalside to audience on the opposite bank 

People passing by the Hoxton Docks on the Regent’s Canal in London were treated to a stunning performance from two dancers from The Royal Ballet.

The classical duet between a male and female dancer was performed on a purpose-built pontoon at the Potemkin Theatre in East London.   

Annette Buvoli and Harry Churches from The Royal Ballet were filmed on Wednesday evening as they practised for a socially-distanced show in the same spot in two weeks’ time. 

A passing cyclist captured the pair dancing to a composition by Italian composer Ennio Morricone – the theme music for the 1986 film The Mission.  

Cyclists and walkers along the Regent’s Canal stopped to watch the surprise outdoor performance.  

The video of the dancers was posted to Twitter and received over 600,000 views. 

The Royal Ballet closed its doors to the public on March 17 and although some performances have been live-streamed, the building remains closed to live audiences. 

They were filmed dancing to the main theme music for the 1986 film The Mission written by Italian composer Ennio Morricone 

Annette Buvoli and Harry Churches were practising for a show with the group DistDancing, who advertise their public performances on Instagram.  

Buvoli is American dancer and a First Artist at the Royal Ballet, while Churches is an Artist a the company and hails from Australia. 

The DistDancing group was founded as a project between Chisato Katsura, a First Artist at the Royal Ballet, and her landlord who owns the Hoxton Docks project and the Potemkin Theatre. 

Ms Katsura enlisted the help of Valentino Zucchetti, a First Soloist at the ballet company, to a main organiser of the DistDancing project which took off during lockdown in June.

Speaking to MailOnline Ms Katsura said: ‘We came up with the name because we thought the distance between the dancers in the performance and the audience, that’s already quite obvious.  

‘It’s socially distanced. This whole situation is very much related to Covid-19. The audience are watching from afar. 

‘At the moment it’s very much non-profit. It’s more like a gift from us artists to the world. 

‘We are not ticketing audiences, it’s all for free. It’s really just [for people] stumbling upon this event – it’s a surprise, basically.’  

Cyclists and walkers passing by were treated to the surprise outdoor performance which was captured on video and went viral on Twitter

They have been putting on free outdoor live performances to audiences on the canal since the beginning of July.

Other Royal Ballet dancers are involved in the DistDancing group including Luca Acri, David Donnelly, Hannah Grennell, Amelia Townsend and dancers from other disciplines. 

The piece the duo in the video are dancing to is specially choreographed by Erico Montes for DistDancing and Hoxton Docks project.  

Their next public performances are this Saturday, August 1 on the canalside at 3pm, 5pm and 7pm.  

Dance companies around the world have been finding novel ways to perform to their audiences since lockdown. 

Russian dancers from the St Petersburg’s Mikhailovsky Theatre filmed themselves performing sections from famous ballets, including Don Quixote and Giselle, at home. 

They incorporated household implements including a dinner plate, a saucepan and a spoon into the routines and shared the footage online.

The Royal Ballet closed its doors to the public on March 17. The group, DistDancing, which includes dancers from the Royal Ballet, has been finding novel ways to perform to audiences since lockdown

Annette Buvoli is American dancer and a First Artist at the Royal Ballet. She is pictured here performing The Swan on a pontoon on the Regent’s Canal in East London

Harry Churches is an Artist at The Royal Ballet and was one of the dancers in the video of the duet. He is pictured here performing for a canalside audience