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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