BalletBoyz: The Talent is coming. David Bellan talks to co-founder William Trevitt

William Trevitt and Michael Nunn were both successful dancers in The Royal Ballet, and then formed their own company of two – BalletBoyz – who performed in a much more contemporary style. Four years ago, approaching 40, and feeling their powers beginning to fade, they decided to hand on the baton to a fresh group of young dancers; BalletBoyz: The Talent. “This project has been so successful they now get hundreds of applications from all over Europe. “That’s a lot of dancers to choose from – how do they do it ?

“We see 60 to 80 people in two auditions. What we’re looking for are dancers that are versatile, so we need to see lots of different elements and skills in just one day. Like all dance companies we’re looking for a certain size and shape, but for us it doesn’t have to be too uniform. “We’re looking for strong technique, with the ability to do ballet at one end of the scale, and also to be comfortable getting on and off the floor like a contemporary dancer. We are looking for people who are creative and want to contribute to the creative process.

“The most important thing is the hardest to quantify – something that makes you want to watch that particular dancer. Quite often it’s not who you expect; there’s just something about the intensity of their approach or the way they move that draws your eye and is compelling to watch, and we’re looking for ten of those”

The company members have changed over the four years of its existence, but not entirely. “What happens is two or three of them are looking for a new challenge, or want to move on, or we’ve found another dancer we want to work with. So we typically lose two or three each time we renew the company. But we’ve still got two of our original dancers. They were boys — 18 or 19 – when we hired them, and we’ve grown up with them, and their skills have grown too. One is an excellent teacher now, and one is an excellent choreographer, so those skills, that were hard to spot at the beginning, are really blossoming now, and that’s very exciting for us.”

There are two works in the programme. The first, Serpent, is by Liam Scarlett, who was until recently a dancer in The Royal Ballet.

“When we first approached him he had made one or two small works, but, by the time we actually got to premiere his piece, he had done major works for The Royal Ballet and other international ballet companies, so he has made a name for himself very quickly. What we asked from him was very different – not working with classically trained ballet dancers, but with and all-male group of contemporary dancers, which was something he had never done before.

“We’ve ended up with a fascinating piece that is balletic, and yet it’s not; masculine without being macho. But the sense I get when I’m watching it, is that it is more or less a ballet, because it has line and grace and a certain aesthetic quality that you associate with ballet. Even though the steps aren’t particularly balletic, the overall impression is that you’ve watched a ballet. It’s a fantastic piece”.

Russell Maliphant’s work Fallen, is very different, even though he too came originally from a classical ballet background. Maliphant is much longer-established as a leading choreographer, and he took as his inspiration from Broken Fall, an extraordinary acrobatic trio that he made some time ago for William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, and the legendary Sylvie Guillem.

“Russell liked the idea of those perilous lifts and precarious falls. He used that as a starting point, and reworked the idea for ten men. His piece is much more physical, and displays a different kind of masculinity, though we never want them to look macho – that’s the one thing we always try to avoid – but it’s athletic and daring and physical”.

The mention of the “Boyz” performing with Sylvie Guillem caused me to wonder whether their present company is resolutely all male, or whether we might see some “BalletGals” dancing with them...

“We’re always thinking about that. It’s not that we’re determined to have an exclusively all male company, it’s just that that’s how it’s ended up at the moment. But before too long I’m sure that there will be women involved, or it might be all women; we’re looking at different ideas for projects over the next few years, and we’re by no means bound to an all-male line-up”.

BalletBoyz: The Talent
New Theatre, Oxford
February 7, 7.30pm
Then at The Everyman, Cheltenham, on February 24 and The Wyvern, Swindon, on March 8
Tickets: Visit atgtickets.com