There’s a stunned silence as everyone takes a moment to make sure they heard right.

‘Yup, you heard that right, folks,’ says Dee. ‘The San Francisco Ballet is here to perform for you tonight, you lucky dogs.’

‘I told you we had talent on the streets,’ says Dum.

Three women in ballet tutus and four men in matching pink tights come out onstage. They walk with the grace of professional ballet dancers. One of the ballerinas walks up to Dee as the others get into their ready stances. She takes the mic and stands in the center of the stage until everyone quiets down.

‘We are what’s left of the San Francisco Ballet. A couple of months ago, there were over seventy of us. When the world collapsed, many of us didn’t know what to do. Like you, we stayed with our families and tried to find the ones we loved.

‘But for us dancers, the ballet company is our family, and so we searched among the rubble of our theater and dance studio for those of us who fell. In the end, twelve of us found each other, but not all of us made it this far.

‘This dance is the one we were practicing on the day the world ended. This one is dedicated to the members of our family who are not here today.’ Her voice is clear and strong. It carries through the crowd like the wind caressing our necks.

The ballerina gives the mic back to Dee and steps into position. The dancers take what looks like random places in a line. I can almost fill in the rest of the line in my mind with the other dancers who are not here tonight.

The music begins, and the lights follow the dancers as they leap and pirouette across the stage. It’s a strange yet graceful postmodern kind of a dance with most of the performers missing.

There’s a move where a pair of dancers – a man and a woman – come up to center stage and dance together while the rest stand back and float in the air on their toes. Their motions are graceful and romantic.

Then a dancer comes forward to replace the pair. It’s clear by the empty air between the dancer’s arms and the sad line of his body that his partner is missing. He dances his part of the duet with empty arms.

After him, the remaining dancers come up to dance – one by one, dancing with a ghost partner.

They caress the air where the face of their partner would have been. They spin and land on the floor with their arms stretched out in longing.

Alone in a world of misery.

I watch the beautiful performance with an ache in my chest.