© Channel 4 TV details of The Rough Guide to Choreography Nunn in reviews Trevitt in reviews recent George Piper reviews Ballet.co's Ballet Boyz interview in October 2001

Had things gone to plan, Michael Nunn would be in a rather different - and more lucrative - branch of the performing arts. One of the country's most celebrated and talented dancers, he only discovered the medium when he applied to drama school to pursue his dream of becoming a movie star. "I was 15 - quite late to take it up - but to go to drama school I had to be able to dance a certain amount, so basically I just enrolled in a local dance school and it just went from there."

It certainly did, and Hollywood's loss has been dance's gain. By 18, Nunn was in the Royal Ballet, where he rose through the ranks to become one of the company's leading lights. It was also while at the Royal Ballet that he and long-term creative partner and colleague Billy Trevitt enhanced their profiles by making Channel 4's Ballet Boyz, a series of video diaries that took a frank, warts-and-all look at the chaotic, thrilling, arduous life of a ballet dancer.

Now he and Trevitt have their own dance company, a small but hugely significant outfit called George Piper Dances, which has glowing reviews and awards coming out of its ears. They're also still making television programmes, and their latest series, A Rough Guide to Choreography, charts their fascinating journey as they seek the inspiration and knowledge to choreograph their first entire dance piece. It's a huge step into the unknown, a bit like writing, casting, directing and starring in your own film with absolutely no experience. Ever ambitious, Michael and Billy are not only filming the project, they're performing it at The Barbican in front of 1,200 people, and screening the performance in its entirety a week later on Channel 4 as the climax to their series.
 

If this seems like risk and personal drive gone mad, it's just another feature of Nunn and Trevitt's careers. They've never been afraid to face up to new challenges - not only do they take considerable artistic risks with their dancing, they also turned their back on safe and prosperous careers at the Royal Ballet by leaving to pursue a different path. That was the first of many professional risks.

"We'd been there for a good 12 years," explains Nunn when I put this to him. "The repertoire seemed to be coming full circle, we were doing the same stuff all over again. And your career doesn't last forever, so we decided it was time to try some other things really - work with other people and run our own career."

George Piper Dances followed in 2001, and the plaudits have poured in ever since. The success of the company has surprised no one more than Nunn himself. "It was a very self-indulgent exercise, really. We'd formed the company to satisfy our desire to work with great choreographers and new people, and just hoped people came to see the work and enjoyed it."

Of course, setting up your own dance company and having people come to watch you is made a little bit easier if your profile has been raised by taking part in a TV series, a fact that Nunn readily acknowledges. "I think it definitely, definitely helps. When you go to some of the regions outside London, where maybe dance isn't so popular, if you can put a tag line on the poster that says 'Channel 4 Ballet Boyz' or 'As seen on TV' - something like that - it could bring in an additional crowd. And people who saw the series have become interested in dance who never were before. We've had people come up to us and tell us that they watched Ballet Boyz by accident and got hooked on the series. They've ended up hearing we're in town and come along to see us. That's a great new audience for us, and for dance in general. It's made ballet and contemporary dance a bit more accessible."
 

Nunn is something of an evangelist for his art form - it would be impossible to stay at the top of your career for so long if you lacked the requisite passion - and he acknowledges that it's been a thrilling ride. "The best thing is that every day is completely different - it's not remotely mundane. And you get to travel to some wonderful places. But there are down sides to it too. It takes up your entire life; it's really restrictive in terms of time. We work very long hours. When people hear you're a dancer, they'll often ask what you do all day long before an evening performance. But we start at 10am and go through to 10:30 at night. And that takes its toll on your body. We've all had our fair share of injuries and operations, a few broken bones and bits and pieces. I think that'll come back with a vengeance as we get older."

As well as a few aches and pains, the ballet world has given both Nunn and Trevitt a legacy of a more positive kind: Both met their wives, also dancers, through working together. Is that a common feature of the profession? "I think it is, really, because you spend so much time captive - especially when you're in a big company. You mix with the same 80 or 100 people all the time. You tour with them, you end up holidaying with them, so inevitably you end up marrying them."

Nunn's priorities have shifted somewhat in recent months, with the birth of his son George last summer. Despite being a family man, he's taking on perhaps the biggest challenge of his career by attempting to become a choreographer almost overnight. But is it really that difficult? If you can dance, surely you can put the steps together as well?

"That's a common misconception," he says with good-natured patience. "It's totally different. You can compare it with being a librarian compared to an author. You look after books, and presumably read a lot and are interested in them. But that in no way means that you can write them. In the same way, just because you dance and know lots of steps doesn't mean you can choreograph. A lot of dancers make the same mistake - think that they can do it, but most of them can't. It's very few who can actually put the steps together and make something watchable."
 

True to form, though, Nunn and Trevitt aren't just out to make something watchable. They're looking to create a piece that is original and daring, and as such have drawn inspiration from a variety of sources, including Tai Chi, pop music, basketball, and the Brazilian dance martial art Capoeira. The series follows them as they meet practitioners of each style, and search for a style of their own. "We wanted to look at original ideas, and find something that might give us an edge, make us a little bit more unique, rather than just copying someone else's style.

"It's also about pushing ourselves. As dancers you want to push yourself all the time. Creating the company was good, and it's been successful, but we don't want it to become formulaic. We know we can do what we do now, so it's worth looking for other challenges. Otherwise you just get bored, and the audience gets bored and goes on to the next thing."

As the big performance at the Barbican approaches, Nunn and Trevitt are working flat out to get everything right. "There's a lot to do in a month," says Nunn, who admits to being excited and terrified in equal measures. "I think mid-way through the month we'll be more certain if it's a hit or a miss we've got on our hands."

Full of enthusiasm, vigour and determination, not to mention talent, it seems inconceivable that Nunn and Trevitt will fail. It's not something they're used to, after glittering careers in ballet and contemporary dance. But although the industry has been more than good to Nunn, he's not sure if he'd encourage his baby son to go into dance if the opportunity arose one day.

 

"Crikey," he says, before pausing. "I wouldn't discourage him, but I wouldn't encourage him either, unless I thought he was absolutely, phenomenally talented. It's a tough job, not just physically but mentally. There's a lot of rejection at a young age which I wouldn't want him to go through. You live from term to term when you're at ballet school - they can throw you out any time. It's all a bit unnecessary for young people. But if he wanted to, I couldn't stop him."

But he'd prefer him, perhaps, to follow his father's unrealised dream of a career in blockbuster movies? "Oh yeah, that's it! He can keep his dad in sports cars!"