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Michael Nunn and William Trevitt founded George
Piper Dances in January 2001 with an aim to dispel the elitism that
surrounds classical dance.
Following 12 years with The Royal Ballet and a
subsequent two years with K Ballet, Michael and Billy are known
as the Ballet Boyz where their film diaries shown on Channel 4 received
huge audience figures.
Never shy of a challenge, the boys are back on
our screens in their latest show, The Rough Guide To Choreography.
It's been just over a year since the George Piper
Dances performed in Norwich. BBC Norfolk's Martin Barber asked Michael
what they've been up to in the last 12 months.
Michael Nunn: As soon as we finished in
Norwich, we started on The Rough Guide To Choreography.
Billy Trevitt (left) and Michael Nunn in A Rough
Guide to Choreography. |
In September 2003 we flew to America for our first
tour tour of the States which was great.
In November we then created a new trio called Broken
Fall, which we'll be bringing to Norwich.
Then at the start of this year we started regional
touring with the programme that Norwich will be seeing in July.
What was the reaction of American audience to
the George Piper Dances?
We were really surprised. The first venue we went
to was a 2,500 seater in LA and it sold out just on pre-publicity.
I think they follow dance quite closely and there
had been a few rumours that we were worth going to see and the tour
quickly sold out.
You always have a filmic element to your performances,
why is that?
When we tour, we thought it's not just enough to
show the dance pieces. Quite often dance companies I think exclude
their audiences by showing them things they may not understand.
To make things clearer and more fun for us and
the audience, we make short films about the pieces.
Either about the choreographer producing the work,
or us in rehearsal explaining what the work is about, why we chose
it, why you're watching it.
We also make a short film about the venue. In this
case getting into the theatre in Norwich, buying lunch in M&S, whatever
happens that day really!
Tell us about the works you're presenting on
this tour.
It opens with Approximate Sonata which is a William
Forsythe piece. He's adapted it especially for us - it's
a great piece.
Billy Trevitt and Oxana Panchenko |
We then present Christopher Wheeldon's Mesmerics
which is a big piece he made for the company last year. It's always
been very, very popular.
Then we finish with Broken Fall, which won the
2004 Laurence Olivier Award for best new dance, created for me and
Billy by Russell Maliphant. We'll dance this with Oxana Panchenko.
You were saying the Forsythe piece has been
stripped from four to two, does that not leave something missing?
No [laughs]. It was a quartet, but Forsyth was
interested in adapting it so we sent Mr Trevitt over to see him
with Oxana and he sort of hand-tailored it for them.
We would have had the quartet, but he wanted to
try this new thing and turn it into a duet. I think it's good.
You and Billy are hands on in everything to
do with the company, apart from the choreograph, until now.
Yes, we're in the midst of our Channel 4 series,
The Rough Guide To Choreography, at the moment.
When you watch the series it's almost like watching
it in real time. We've got a couple of weeks left until the live
show in London.
We're half way through making the piece and it's
getting close. I think it's going to be pretty good, but I might
be talking out of turn or slightly biased. [laughs]
Turning to choreography seems a very natural
step for you to take.
You'd think so wouldn't you. I'm not sure it actually
work likes that. It's significantly more difficult than we'd anticipated.
You work long and hard at it for a few days, you
sit back and look at it to find it's a load of old rubbish, so you
start again.
You have to keep pairing it down until you find
exactly what you're looking for. We've found you have to give the
instructions very accurately to the dancers.
How did the series come about?
When we first thought of the series we were doing
Critics' Choice, where we'd asked five choreographers to make different
pieces for us. That's the show we brought to Norwich last year.
We were so interested in the process and they came
out so well on film, we thought may be we should introduce this
to a broader audience and make a series about it.
Billy Trevitt and Michael Nunn |
You and Billy spend so much time together -
tell me you fall out occasionally.
No - we're the Morecambe and Wise of dance, apart
from the fact we don't have a big double bed. [Laughs]
We do spend all our time together, we even holiday
together sometimes. Our families do see us occasionally on a Sunday.
We do work hard and quite often we do have the
opportunity to hand over some responsibility, but invariably they
can't do it as well as we can so we end up doing it ourselves.
Maybe you just can't let go?
Possibly, but they haven't got the same interest
in it as us. It's our company and if it fails it's our fault, which
is why we end up doing most of the work ourselves.
Norwich is the last date on your UK tour - then
what?
The Norwich date is the last performance of George
Piper Dances as we know it.
Billy and I have been touring for the last three
years and we don't want it to become formulaic so we're looking
for the next challenge really.
We'll be taking a sabbatical in September and the
company will be reforming in the new year just before the new tour
starts.
It's just to give us some breathing space to look
into some new ideas basically.
Which are...
The only clue I can give you is that we're looking
into doing more narrative work. We're looking at a full-length evening,
rather than presenting short pieces, but that could all change.
We do have some ideas of what that content might
be, but I can't possibly say just yet.
The George Piper Dances performed at the Norwich
Theatre Royal on Friday 16 July, 2004.
Update: Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt are returning
to Norfolk on Friday 24 September, 2004 at the King's Lynn Corn
Exchange for an evening of work Up Close and Personal.
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