Here's one thing you can count on with "big," the unlikely marriage of hip-hop music and ballet opening Thursday at the Fox Theatre. There will be no rappers in tights.

But almost anything else goes in this world premiere collaboration between the Atlanta Ballet and hip-hop star Big Boi from OutKast. Dancers in the aisles, audience members being pulled onstage and "La Traviata" segueing into "Morris Brown" from the "Idlewild" soundtrack. And through it all, Big Boi himself singing live onstage and interacting with the dancers.

David Walter Banks / The New York Times (ENLARGE)
The hip-hop/ballet 'big' makes its world premiere in Atlanta Thursday, with (clockwise from front center) Antwan 'Big Boi' Patton, Alessa Rogers, Anne Tyler Harshbarger, Peng-Yu Chen, Christian Clark, Li-Chuan Lin and Jesse Tyler.
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IF YOU GO "big" opens Thursday and will have six performances at the Fox Theatre through Sunday evening. For more information or for tickets, go to www.atlantaballet.com or www.ticketmaster.com, call Ticketmaster's arts line at 404-817-8700 or visit any Ticketmaster location. RELATED LINK: • STORY: The artists who'll be performing • VIDEO: "big" in rehearsal • More info about this event • Atlanta Arts blog

"We've learned his energy and how to work around him," dancer Jonah Hooper said last week during a break in rehearsal. In the Atlanta Ballet's studios, Hooper and other company members moved with all the strength and grace of classically trained ballet dancers. And yet, what they were doing wasn't exactly ballet. It was a strange new blend of ballet and modern dance, with references to hip-hop and breakdancing styles.

"We're exploring what classical dance means today, not 300 years ago," said choreographer Lauri Stallings. "We're exploring what dance has meant to hip-hop up until now."

For Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, the groundbreaking project is not such a big leap.

He and Andre "Dre" Benjamin made OutKast the best-selling rap group ever, in part because they have always seen hip-hop in bigger terms. When other hip-hop artists prided themselves on finding the best sample of an old record to make a new one, OutKast turned to live bands and regular front-porch rhythms like knee-slaps and harmonicas to make hits.

And when their hip-hop peers could be counted on, time and time again, to detail the carats in the watches and the size of their car rims, OutKast told more real-life stories about "Bombs Over Baghdad" and "baby mama drama."

So it makes sense that when the Atlanta Ballet was looking to broaden its audience, it found assistance locally, in OutKast's Patton.

"We have always been about having our minds open to whatever," said Patton, taking a break from rehearsing what he calls the "house band" for "big."

And even though he concedes he has never seen a ballet production as an adult, "when they came to me with the idea [about a year ago], I had no hesitations. I was ready to crank it up right then!"

Patton says his goal with "big" is simple: "We want to bring the ballet audience and the funk generation together. The elegant and the dainty with the hard. And I know I can give them hard."

The Atlanta Ballet has a history of unusual collaborations. Under artistic director John McFall, the ballet has come up with several popular projects, including:

• "Shed Your Skin — The Indigo Girls Project," which put Atlanta's homegrown folk/rock duo onstage with the dancers in 2001 and again in '04

• "Requiem and Transcendence," a 2003 collaboration with Roswell-based Michael O'Neal Singers and the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Choir

• A 2002 collaboration with the Red Clay Ramblers, a North Carolina mountain string band.

But this production is by far the most unusual to date. McFall says that even people in Atlanta's arts community didn't understand his vision when he first began tossing the idea around. He turned down offers to connect with hip-hop choreographers, he says.

"The last thing I wanted was a hip-hop choreographer," McFall says. "This is not a hip-hop ballet. It's not a hip-hop concert. That's what has been so special about this collaboration. We're open to a totally new approach."

So it's not classical. And it's not exactly hip-hop. "Big" promises to be great — but carries no label.

In every way, "big" is a dramatic departure from such ballet staples as "Sleeping Beauty," "Swan Lake," and "The Nutcracker," all of which date to the 19th century. There isn't even a story line in "big," although McFall says there are threads that run through the two acts (they're called "chapters" in this production).

"Some of the most exhilarating moments in my personal experience is when the event just washes over me and it lingers and continues to do so long after. A provocation that stirred me or took me someplace I've never been," McFall said.

"That's why this is not 'Sleeping Beauty,'" he said. "We don't want to bring that kind of definition to it."

Much of the music in "big" will be familiar to fans of OutKast, Janelle Monae, Sleepy Brown and others. But Patton has given the show a new song, titled "Sir Luscious Leftfoot Saves the Day," from the solo CD he's planning to release in July, titled "Sir Luscious Leftfoot — The Son of Chico Duffy."

The best part of the collaboration, Patton says, "has been seeing [the choreographer] take what we imagined musically and watch her reimagine it visually. Just the moves and the production and everything make me excited. It makes me think: 'What now? What can I funk people up with next?"