Rough Guide to Choreography

[sandik]

This British television series was mentioned on a Usenet newsgroup -- is anyone here familiar with it and willing to describe what goes on?

[Mel Johnson]

We can only hope that this "Rough Guide" isn't like Michael Green's classic "Downwind of Upstage". Green describes how most people teach students how to become "fine actors"; his book teaches how to become a "coarse actor". (Be drooling idiot who upstages Mark Antony in the "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech, etc.)

[Ari]

The series (four episodes) appears to show Michael Nunn and William Trevitt in the act of choreographing. See this brief blurb:

The Times of London

[sandik]

It sounds like one of those programs that could be great or could be dreadful -- I hope someone reports back here!

Tangentially, I appreciated the comment in the blurb that followed after, about a cooking show.

"while Oz Clarke will be getting cheerfully sloshed on various wines."

If you're going to be a drunk, it's better to be a happy one.

[Jane Simpson]

If you've seen the George Piper Dances stage show, or the Ballet Boyz television programmes from a few years ago , the Rough Guide will look very familiar - too much so, for someone who's seeing some of their video clips for the fourth time. They are following Trevitt and Nunn as they work towards making a piece of their own, with some fairly low-level generalities about choreography thrown in, and some unrelated stories about life in GPD - the first episode featured the night last year when Nunn pulled out of the show to attend the birth of his son, with all the dramas of last-minute substitutes going on.

I'm not sure what their target audience is - from what they say, it's people new to the idea of choreography, but I think you'd have had to concentrate very hard to learn much from this first programme - Akram Khan on improvisation and Kathak is not exacly beginners' stuff. I felt the whole concept of these films is getting a bit self-indulgent - you have to like the Boyz a lot to go along with it. But the next epsiode may be better.