The BalletBoyz – Deluxe: Ripple/Bradley 4:18/The Intro

Michael Nunn and William Trevitt – former dancers with The Royal Ballet – founded their all-male company Balletboyz in 2000. The company has since won multiple awards and has produced several acclaimed television projects, including The Rough Guide to Choreography (Channel 4), The Royal Ballet in Cuba (More4) and Balletboyz: The Rite of Spring (BBC Three), as well as creating the digital work for Christopher Wheeldon’s Electric Counterpoint (The Royal Ballet).

An all-new, live dance show in celebration of the company’s 20th anniversary year. The double-bill with a special video introduction brings together collaborations from some of the world’s most inventive and thought-provoking artists, including an all-female team of choreographers. Ripple – Ripple marks the UK debut of Chinese choreographer Xie Xin choreographed to a highly detailed electronic score by composer, lauded tap dancer and her long-time collaborator Jiang Shaofeng. The piece explores movement inspired by the memory of a person and the flow of energy that such memories and feelings possess. Beautifully fluid and lyrical, it sees the BalletBoyz company express new styles in contrast to their familiar athletic and strength-oriented work. Bradley 4:18, choreographed by Punchdrunk’s Maxine Doyle, is inspired by the lyrics and story of spoken word artist Kate Tempest’s Pictures on a Screen, about Bradley, a seemingly successful young man struggling to connect with the world around him. It is set to a score by Mercury Award nominated and Ivors Academy Award winning London-based composer, arranger and alto-saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi. Composed in parallel with the choreographic creation, it is a highly atmospheric, filmic score with a modern jazz flavour. Bradley 4:18 presents the six BalletBoyz dancers as different iterations of the character Bradley and how he might act at 4:18 in the morning. The Intro – Ahead of the double-bill, the evening will begin with a short film introducing the BalletBoyz in a new work choreographed by dancer and emerging choreographer Sarah Golding and set to Seed Ensemble track The Darkies as featured on their Mercury Prize-nominated album Driftglass. The piece introduces the audience to the dancers’ and offers a look into their individual personalities and characters, and giving a flavour of the performances to come before they arrive on stage.