After their success at the Brighton Dome last year, BalletBoyz returns to Brighton’s Dome to stun their audience with a high-end performance. In preparation for their arrival at Brighton, we look at journalist Theo Bosanquet’s conversation with Craig Revel Horwood to learn more about the dance company and their new production: Fourteen Days.
Even today, Ballet still has a tendency of following the classical route and avoiding anything that would diverge from its classic school. However, Revel Horwood was thrilled to be asked to come back and create new work with BalletBoyz, as he declares that “they’ve really pushed the boundaries of ballet and made it sexy and cool”. After realising that his great grandfather was a champion clog dancer, Revel Horwood was struck with the idea of “miners clog dancing”. Basing his idea on his hometown of Ballarat – where there was a miners’ revolt in the mid-19th century – the concept developed to a clog dance battle between the miners and the soldiers of this historical event. An insane task for him and the boys to take on clogs when only being trained in classical ballet, Revel Horwood points out that “it’s almost the polar opposite to ballet as a discipline, because your feet are so heavy”. But it was such a difficult task that led them to evolve and experiment into creating “a brilliant piece”, says Revel Horwood.
The concept of creating Fourteen Days (in fourteen days) appears senseless. When talking to Billy Trevitt and Michael Nunn (co-founders of BalletBoyz, their shocking response was quite the obvious reaction for Revel Horwood. However, he insisted that if “God made the world in seven days” and he had double that time, it was a doable feat. Jokes and blasphemies aside, the decision to create a choreography in such challenging circumstances (to learn clog dancing from scratch) is evidently commendable and makes the piece gain that extra recognition from the public.
Revel Horwood highlights that what distinguishes BalletBoyz to other dance companies is that each “Ballet Boy” is an individual; they are not a corps de ballet as such. By getting “to know each individual dancer” but yet still working symbiotically as a team – these performers bring individuality to their choreographies. I will be interested to see how this individuality comes across in a challenging piece and whether it results in a successful hybrid between dance, live art and performance.
Fourteen Days is showing at Brighton Dome on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 November. Shows start at 7:30pm.
Tickets: From £10
Image Credit: Panayiotis Sinnos
