Michael Nunn and William Trevitt have been friends - dancing together, making video diaries (as TV's Ballet Boyz) and now running George Piper Dances - since they met, as students, 20 years ago.
Encore, four short pieces by different choreographers, is a kind of summing up so far, and what a fine bundle of larks it is, cunningly interspersed with droll to-camera reflections from both lads and their colleague, Oxana Panchenko. There are engaging musings on working relationships, getting older - both lads are nearing 40, though defying it with imposing muscles - and whether dance is a popular art form. Clearly it is when GPD is in action.
For openers, we hark back to Trevitt's youth, and Will Tuckett's On Classicism which Dame Ninette de Valois (on-screen) declares "quite lovely". Who are we to disagree? The duet - reprised by Trevitt with Panchenko - takes a precocious delight in balletic minimalism sparked with the arch courtesy that only the young can get away with: the pure lines still look good, nonetheless.
Charles Linehan's Jjanke has Nunn and Trevitt engaged in subtle rivalry, flexing footwork and swaggering gestures under the influence of a Slovenian accordion, while Liv Lorent's Propeller - a duet for Nunn and Panchenko - is a simply exquisite sliver of mystical intimacy, where bodies slowly arc into flying curves as if energised by a caress.
Rafael Bonachela's Mandox Bandox is the all-out finale: an urban-edgy threesome that shows off everyone's stamina, prowess and attitude. Then guess what? George Piper Rocks! Nunn on drums, t'others on guitars, with a cracking cover of the Artic Monkeys' I bet you look good on the dance-floor. Dame Ninette would have been lost for words, but the girls in the stalls went wild.
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