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Channel
4 made stars out of Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt, the
two dancers who quit the Royal Ballet. Times have been
hard since. Becky Hogge reports.
 What
is the most annoying thing about reality TV? Some might
say that the devil is in the detail - from the half-baked
club rep to the airport concierge, they've each found
their own inimitable way of invading our living rooms
and irritating the hell out of us.
But
I would argue instead, that it is the universal confidence
with which every amateur TV narrator believes that his/her
life-story is relevant to us and that, even worse, they
might somehow go down in history for boring the nation
with the minutae of their tired little lives. Why are
they so confident? Because they're right, confidence breeds
fame. If only for the fact that they are on such an amoebic
level of humanity to even consider making Rough Ramblers,
or whatever, at least now after the show the woman who
sells them their daily paper instantly recognises them.
People really do become famous after doing reality TV.
Which
is why it was so odd watching Ballet Boyz, the Channel
4 documentary (one hesitates to call it docu-soap) about
two dancers, Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt, and what
they did after they walked out of the Royal Ballet. Because
these two men (as well as the three they took with them)
were at the top of their field, in a position of which
most professional dancers can only dream and now they
were happy doing a documentary about how they were down-scaling.
Almost
as soon as the camera started rolling in the first series,
their careers got smaller and smaller - with the second
series ending with them dancing the corps-de-ballet miles
away from their families, in Japan. Now, with a third
series in the pipeline, Nunn and Trevitt have moved back
to the UK and formed The George Piper Dancers, which enjoys
neither the reputation of the Royal Ballet nor the obsessive
fanbase of K Ballet which they formed subsequently. But,
as Michael Nunn explained to me, he couldn't be more pleased
with the way things are turning out.
"I
think it's the best thing I ever did - leaving a big company
and starting my own. I find the only person you can blame
if things start going wrong is yourself, or the partner
you're running it with - then you can do something about
it. I was sick of being in a big company and moaning about
the status quo, not actually doing anything about it.
I put my money where my mouth was and just got on with
it. So I can't really moan about pay and conditions because
I create them myself." Nunn is a quick mover, both
on and offstage. It took just over a year for him and
Trevitt to decide that touring Japan with virtuoso soloist
(and face of Seiko and Nescafé ads in Japan) Teddy
Kumakawa wasn't the right thing for them, neither personally
nor professionally. "We knew what was going to happen,
that sort of company has a very limited shelf-life, for
myself and Billy particularly because we'd done all of
that sort of work before. It was nice to introduce all
of that repertoire to a new audience but beyond that it
wasn't really pushing us anywhere artistically."
They came home to a few I-told-you-so's from the ballet
establishment. Having quit the Royal Ballet at its lowest
point (homeless, unpopular and with an uncertain future)
and taken almost all the good male dancers with them,
many were pleased to see them come home with their tails
wagging gracefully between their legs. But Nunn and Trevitt
had other ideas. Ideas in the form of The George Piper
Dancers.
There
is an innocence that exudes from them as they grin at
the camera during the second series of Ballet Boyz. It
could almost be Take That in Japan - many of the dances
are all male, and the fans are of the young and lustful
kind - were it not for the ballet. But this naivety must
be, to some extent at least, contrived - it's quite obvious
that these men did not get where they are (or were) by
just smiling sweetly and carefully cracking jokes. Ballet
is tough business, yet these two choose to hide their
competitiveness from the camera. Of the film, Nunn even
goes so far as to claim that "we were just going
to give it to the Opera House's archive, but then we suddenly
thought - this would make quite good TV - and we showed
some to Channel 4, and they picked up on it." As
if the media exposure (not to mention programme fee) hadn't
even occurred to him. He makes a few slips during my interview
however - he continually calls his show his 'product'
and he more than once makes it clear that he is trying
to target a younger market with his dance. In fact, he
has all the business sense you'd expect from somebody
who's seen from the inside, the biggest dance institution
in this country near to collapse under its own anachronism.
"I
think anything that helps bring a new and younger audience
into classical dance is good. For example, the video material
we use, it obviously increased the interest, because people
like television, they like going to the cinema. Theatre's
pushing the boundaries, they're introducing new technology
and I think that dance is a bit slow on the uptake, but
I think it's getting there now". But he is keen to
stress: "I don't think we could get away with what
we do on TV and in the shows if the work was bad. I think
that would be a con. If you're all media and no product,
then you would be in trouble. The show is of a high quality
and I'm happy with that."
Nunn
is the first to admit that the popularity of Ballet Boyz
may have helped jump-start the career of George Piper
Dancers: "We've been formed for a year and we've
played some really exciting venues and done some great
tours. A lot of that is to do with the fact that we've
done television. The managers feel that they can sell
maybe a few more tickets than they could for other dance
companies." However, the media attention they've
received as dancers, both documenting their whirlwind
exit from the Royal and the footage they've broadcast
themselves, has left them with a kind of relationship
with the media not usually experienced by classical dancers.
Whereas the Royal and the National can usually expect
a gentlemanly pat on the back when a new season begins,
Nunn and Trevitt have leapt into the street - the self-styled
Boyz in the Hood. So far, the mainstream press has been
behind them, but Nunn is just waiting for the fall: "I'm
sure at one stage they will cut us down. But it just makes
you work a bit harder."
And
working hard is exactly what they're doing. When I spoke
to Nunn he'd just got back from Tel Aviv - "It's
a little bit strange. I've been there before, in 1995
I went there with the Royal Ballet, it's a bit quieter
this time, we sat on our own in restaurants and that sort
of thing" - and in the next week they're doing Bromley
and… Ankara. "We're planning to do America and
New York. Hopefully to expand the company a little bit
- we've done three London seasons now, which is quite
a lot for the first year. We'll be working with a choreographer
in New York. And hopefully co-producing something with
a New York and London theatre."
Starting
their own company has meant that they have been able to
invite exciting contemporary and classical choreographers
to design new dances for them, as well as have a go themselves.
"Now we're a small company, we can go to them, so
if we're working with a German choreographer, we can go
to Germany. We can keep our costs down, that's important,"
says Nunn. Collaborations on his wish list include choreographer
Akram Khan, and he hopes to continue their relationship
with Billy Forsythe. "We get sent videos of people's
work constantly, which we go through when we have time.
Does that mean we're in demand? I suppose we are really.
People are taking their hats off to what we're doing because
it's quite risky and I suppose people want to help us.
And I think we interpret people's work as well as we can
and we spend a lot of time doing it."
The
Brighton show will mix classical pieces with a contemporary
angle: interspersed with video snippets. "I think
you'll tell straight away that we're all classically rather
than contemporary trained dancers but I don't hold back
anything from the more contemporary pieces. It's nice
to see us do a broader range of work. If you see us then
you see both sides of it really, you'll see some classical
work and contemporary work. It's quite unusual for a small
company," Nunn concludes.
It
remains to be seen whether the tangent that setting up
their own company and living the past four years through
a camera lens has allowed George Piper Dancers to shoot
off on, will go down well in the City of Culture. Judging
by the track record so far, it'll be a sell out.
George
Piper Dancers, Ballet Boyz, at Dome concert hall, June
13, 7.30pm, tickets £6-£12.
copyright New Insight 2002
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