Kip Gamblin

A celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet, who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club's most notorious and beautiful star.

At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.

A champion high school rugby player has a secret desire to be a ballet dancer, having spent 11 years in ballet school. Seizing an opportunity to audition for a local company's presentation of "Romeo and Juliet", he nonetheless fears what will happen to his reputation if the other kids in his school find out. Adding the practices to his already burgeoning schedule quickly starts to create problems with his friends, his teachers, his coach, his play director, and his ballet partner. Of course, it all comes together on the stage of the Sydney Opera House.