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ONE of the world’s best-known modern architects has found a new use for the shimmering steel buildings that he has turned into landmarks in cities around the world. Frank Gehry, renowned for sculptural masterpieces such as the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, wants his undulating silver roofs to become aerial dance floors.

This week, at one of Gehry’s most dramatic constructions, dancers will mix ballet with bungee-jumping as they leap across the scalloped domes of an auditorium at Bard college in Annandale-on-Hudson, 90 miles north of New York.

The performance is the first in a series of rooftop spectaculars that may ultimately be performed at nine different Gehry buildings in America and Europe, among them the Bilbao museum and the Walt Disney concert hall in Los Angeles.

The project is the brainchild of Noémie Lafrance, a 34-year-old Canadian choreographer who combines circus-like trapeze work with modern dance moves tailored to specific architectural settings.

“Ms Lafrance’s integration of architecture in choreography is fascinating and groundbreaking,” Gehry wrote in a letter of recommendation to the owners of the buildings he designed.

Lafrance said she was hoping to reach an audience that would not dream of going into a theatre to watch a modern dance performance but might stand outside to watch dancers jumping off the roof.

Most of Gehry’s buildings have become tourist magnets and several owners have already expressed an interest in performances of Lafrance’s 40-minute piece, Rapture.

Some modern buildings have proved to be a draw for urban explorers such as the French extreme climber Alain Robert, the so-called Spiderman, who has made a career out of scaling the world’s highest skyscrapers. But officials at Bard said they doubted whether Lafrance’s opening performance would inspire drunk students to try to scale the $62m (£34m) auditorium.

Lafrance’s piece requires a complex network of cabling and pulleys attached to the undersides of Gehry’s panelling so as not to disfigure the shiny cladding. The dancers are lowered and hoisted by unseen riggers, enabling performers to leap across the curving roofs — described by Lafrance as “a landscape in the sky”.

The choreographer has previously performed site-specific dances on a spiral staircase, in a garage of parked cars and in an abandoned swimming pool.

The dancers wear wrestling shoes, which were found to have the best grip, but rehearsals still proved impossible at midday because of the force of the sun glinting off Gehry’s reflective steel panels.

Not since Elizabeth Taylor starred in the film of Tennessee Williams’s play has a hot tin roof caused such an artistic stir.

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