Ballet dancer Sergei Polunin performs at Milan fashion show

Last night, at Ports 1961’s AW16 menswear show at Milan Fashion Week, acclaimed (and heavily tattooed) ballet dancer Sergei Polunin took to the catwalk and treated the audience to a surprise performance.

Formerly the Royal Ballet’s youngest ever principal, Polunin hit the headlines in 2012 for resigning from the position, saying he was unhappy and that, “the artist in me was dying.” Subsequently earning the nickname the ‘bad boy of ballet’, Polunin is now the principal dancer with two prominent Russian theatres – Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre and the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Polunin hit the headlines again last year, following his breathtaking performance in David LaChapelle’s visual interpretation of Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” – a video that went viral, attracting nearly 14 million views.

On the Ports 1961 catwalk, Polunin performed sautés, tombés and pirouettes for the iPhone-wielding press and buyers, wearing the same skin-coloured shorts that he did in LaChapelle’s video.

But this wasn’t the Ukranian dancer’s first foray into fashion – he modelled in Marc Jacobs AW14 campaign shot by David Sims and, more recently, in a shoot for biannual men’s fashion magazine Man About Town shot by Gosha Rubchinskiy.

Aside from Polunin’s performance, the show saw the debut of Milan Vukmirovic’s AW16 collection. This comprised of tailoring infused with Japanese-inspired motifs, modelled by a cast that included the platinum-haired Utahn, Lucky Blue Smith and golden afroed Brooklynite, Michael Lockley.

Watch some clips of Sergei Polunin’s performance below: