A blend of ballet and hip hop may be hard to imagine.It's not easy to picture the bombastic attitude and showmanship of breaking melded with the rigor and grace of classical and contemporary dance: an idea of the fusion may slowly take shape but imagining what the dancers' movements would look like presents physical and stylistic challenges. That's why I assumed choreographer Victor Quijada and co-director Anne Plamondon's ambitious Rubberbandance Group, one of the first dance groups around the world to simultaneously embrace hip-hop and classical dance with such gusto, would highlight the conflict between its dance forms at its Boston debut last Friday. Its stunning sold-out performance at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston brought a provocative new aesthetic that challenged how the audience viewed the space around the dancers.

The result was a new perception toward air: Instead of merely moving through it, the eight members of the ensemble carved through a seemingly viscous medium-like they were dancing in pudding, to put it one way. Rather than creating conflict between hip hop and classical dance, Rubberbandance celebrated a fresh and seamless marriage of the two forms.

A simple explanation to the group's success in fusion is that Quijada, who grew up with the underground hip-hop dance scene in Los Angeles, had spent 8 years training with Plamondon, a professional ballet dancer. The two noted the challenges that came up in the crisscross of disciplines: as a classically trained dancer, Plamondon had mastered control of her body through balancing on her two feet but not on her hands or chest. It took years of rigorous training until she gained the upper body strength required for hip-hop dance. However, making the transition from classical to hip hop was an essential part of the co-directors' creative process.

So what exactly does this product look like? Runnerbandance's presentation, titled Loan Sharking, began its first act with the fiery music of Igor Stravinsky, a creative presentation of smooth movements between the bodies of the eight dancers. Impressive acrobatic techniques showcased their agile bodies while stark moments of musical stops gave emphasis to their ability to express emotion through their facial expressions. An amusing moment, where the dancers seemed to try and dodge the spotlight, made the audience chuckle. It was a moment when comedy and theatricality were the focus of the show.

In that moment, the spotlight drew attention not only to the dancer caught under its beam but also to the flawless light design of technical director Yan Lee Chan. The third-floor theater at the ICA had simple, rectangular dimensions that complemented the jagged lights. The sides of the venue were dimly lit with green, outlining the downward path to the show floor. A dancer took advantage of the stairs around the audience: in a moment of humorous metatheatricality, he took a cell phone call on the side while Plamondon was performing onstage. Planted in the audience, he began whispering while the lone dancer moved silently on the floor. Signs of offense like "Are you kidding me?" escalated while he talked louder and louder, until the man walked down to the floor and said on the phone, "I'll tell you how I feel! I feel lost."

Thus began the final pieces of the second act's "Punto Ciego Abreviado," a condensed version of the full-length piece "Punto Ciego." It was an impressive duet between music and dance that illustrated the agonies of love and loss. Jasper Gahunia, a DJ and friend of Quijada's, composed the music using sounds from a classical piece, using the crackly sounds of a record while abruptly offering slices of string and bass. The dance scenes, depicting a pain-filled courtship ritual, were equally abrupt in their emotional presentations. Bodies would flow together while climbing and tumbling through the air, inhabiting both vertical and horizontal planes of movement. But the fluid movements were interrupted by pauses and jolts of darkness-again, Chan's lighting design proved crucial to the narrative. The saga ended beautifully, with three couples standing under pentagonal spotlights holding calm, yet unresolved, postures.

"I created the group because I wanted to see if the two worlds of hip-hop and classical dance could be manifested," said Quijada in a question-and-answer session following the performance. His goal was to change the way dancers approached their bodies by transmitting his knowledge of the different forms. He had imagined hip hop coming out from underground culture and eventually being viewed as an art form that challenged people's expectations. Seeing his ideas manifesting into physical bodies validated this notion and acted as a stepping stone towards creating Rubberbandance. The project, as indicated by its name, features this elastic hodgepodge of varying dance forms, stretching what people consider traditional hip-hop dance and banding it together with classical and ballet.

The performance was organized by World Music/CRASHarts, a performing arts series that will bring over 15 musical and dance acts from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas to Boston. More information on its fall offerings can be found on worldmusic.org.