George Piper Dances.

Queen Elizabeth Hall London, England March 25-29, 2003

It was a fabulous menu: Five of today's top young choreographers created five original dances to show off the extraordinary talents of two outstanding young men.

The title of the George Piper Dances program, "Critics' Choice," was an astute, tongue-in-cheek jab at all the critics who have extolled this energetic group's talents but have regularly commented, "Pity about the choreography." This time there were no such complaints.

Michael George Nunn and William Piper Trevitt were two of the brightest stars in The Royal Ballet until their headlining departure with three other male dancers during the troubled years when the Opera House was closed for refurbishment. In 1999, the duo made a series of highly successful but raw video diaries for television called Ballet Boyz, which showed the nitty-gritty of backstage life. They also founded K Ballet in Japan with fellow deserter Tetsuya Kumakawa before returning in 2001 to start George Piper Dances.

For this program they asked those choreographers whose work they would most like to perform to create new dances. The result was five short pieces from Akram Khan, Christopher Wheeldon, Michael Clark, Russell Maliphant, and Matthew Bourne, who each drew on the dancers' great muscular strength, strong technique, and manliness. In the pauses between pieces, a video showed the choreographers discussing their work.

Khan skillfully blends classical ballet with Indian kathak dance, which he taught to Trevitt, Nunn, and former Royal dancer Matthew Hart. The results were impressive, especially the opening moments where Trevitt and Hart, in white trousers and gauze tunics, moved to the challenging music-less tempos in perfect unison, mirror reflections of each other.

Wheeldon's Mesmerics, set to music by Philip Glass, played on the steely attack and sharp, shooting limbs of former English National Ballet dancer Oxsana Panchenko. She and Nunn wrapped around each other, clamped in some invisible magnetic grasp, as their limbs flailed like those of a foraging octopus.

The ex-punk, classically outlandish Clark gave Trevitt a superb solo to music of Erik Satie, titled Satie Stud. DRESSED ONLY IN A WHITE TOWEL, TREVITT RESEMBLED A ROMAN ATHLETE AS EXCELLENT LIGHTING ILLUMINATED HIS RIPPLING BODY AND HIS PERFECTLY POINTED BARE BALLET FEET. He moved deliberately and elegantly in a study of balance and virility.

Maliphant's Trio willed Tuckett, Nunn, and Panchenko to break boundaries, stretching, kicking, reaching, and lifting, all with great control. In Maliphant's Torsion, Nunn and Trevitt again tested their strengths, like pseudo wrestlers engaged in mutually trusting balances.

And the master of tongue-in-cheek, witty choreography, Matthew Bourne, provided Dearest Love ("A Fred-and-Ginger number for two men," he called it), in which the suave and debonair Nunn and Hart performed campy foxtrots with versatile fancy footwork and great panache.

The evening certainly lived up to its name.