Biography
Michael Nunn developed an interest in film and photography whilst training at the Royal Ballet School, where he met his creative partner William Trevitt. In 1987 they graduated into The Royal Ballet company where they danced for twelve years, performing many major roles and working with some of the most important choreographers of the age. During this time a shared interest in photography and film found them creating BalletBoyz, a documentary film series for Channel Four about their lives as classical ballet dancers. Their fascination with the twin strands of stage and screen has continued throughout their careers up to the present day.
Leaving The Royal Ballet in 1999 to pursue greater creative freedom and to express themselves in a broader range of styles and genres, they headed first to Japan where they were founding members of K-Ballet. Soon after they returned to London and launched their own contemporary dance company in order to create and perform newly commissioned work for themselves and their group of dancers. During the first 10 years of BalletBoyz Nunn and Trevitt created and performed numerous works with choreographers including William Forsythe, Michael Clark, Akram Khan, Liv Lorent, Matthew Bourne, and Christopher Wheeldon, winning nominations and awards along the way. In 2004 they won the Laurence Olivier Award for Russell Maliphant's Broken Fall which they performed with Sylvie Guillem, returning to the stage at The Royal Opera House as Guest Principal dancers.
During this period, Nunn and Trevitt also created numerous arts documentaries and dance films including a sequel to BalletBoyz set in Japan, Rise and Fall - a film featuring the work of Russell Maliphant, a gala performance and short films to celebrate the career of Darcey Bussell, and a digital corps de ballet for Christopher Wheeldon's work for The Royal Ballet, Electric Counterpoint. They won the prestigious Rose D'Or and an International Emmy for their film, Strictly Bolshoi which followed Wheeldon as he became the first Englishman to choreograph a work for the Bolshoi Ballet. This was followed by a film about The Royal Ballet's first visit to perform in Cuba featuring Carlos Acosta and a specially commissioned version of the Rite of Spring for the BBC which won the Grand Jury prize at the Prague International Television festival.
Following their unofficial retirement in 2009 Nunn and Trevitt reinvented BalletBoyz, bringing young, inexperienced dancers together to create an all-male dance company that has grown into the award-winning group you see tonight. Working with an eclectic mix of choreographers, including Liam Scarlett, Alexander Whitley, Paul Roberts, Fernanda Lippi and Javier de Frutos, they have continued to add to the repertoire dozens of new works that tour nationally and internationally to great acclaim.
Film production continued with the The Next Generation, a film about recreating the new line up of the company and Kama Sutra for Sky Arts along with more than 40 short films for Channel Four. In 2014 they commissioned Young Men, a collaboration between the company, composer Keaton Henson and choreographer Iván Pérez. Based on themes of war and soldiering, it became the foundation for their first movie, a unique combination of film-making and story-telling through the language of dance. Young Men premiered on BBC2 on Armistice Day 2017 and won awards at the Rose D'Or and Prague International Television festivals.
Nunn and Trevitt are Associate Artists at Sadler's Wells, Ambassadors for various charities and in 2012 were made OBEs.
