FOR someone who calls Brighton home, Charles Linehan rarely gets to see his work premiered on the south coast.

So does he see he embrace the fact that it is in a Brighton Festival with a central theme of home, that he is invited to create a new piece of work?

“Actually I’m quite nervous”, Charles admits, as he’s speaking on the phone while taking his dog for a walk around the city.

“Most of the time new work is premiered in either London, Nottingham or abroad. But in Brighton there’s more people I know personally rather than professionally.

Is he fazed? “It’s just different,” he coyly admits.

For those unfamiliar with his work, Charles is one of those creative dance types that doesn’t take his art form too seriously.

In 25 years working as a choreographer, he has forged a reputation for taking classical ballet and giving it a very sharp twist to produce deeply atmospheric pieces.

All of those themes are clear with his new commission for the Festival which is made up of a double bill of contrasting works.

The first is a bit of a wild card and departure from the norm.

Titled My Mother’s Tears, it is based on the personal history of William Trevitt and Michael Nunn, who are two former professional ballet dancers who have got a little old for the job.

Creating BalletBoyz, they perform classical mime from The Royal Ballet repertoire with unpredictable consequences.

Charles describes it as a “bit like a wolf in shredded clothing”.

The idea came when Charles was working with the pair on another commission.

During a break, William and Michael started doing a quick sequence of traditional moves from ballets like Swan Lake but in a way that left those present cracking up with laughter.

Charles stored the idea as something to come back to later and it is this juxtaposition that the piece relies on.

Charles explains: “If someone comes onto the stage doing gestures and imitating the behaviour of a stag and another does a pose like they are hunting with bow and arrow then you get the picture.

“There are a lot of dimensions to it: there’s a lot of double act a lot on the balance of [William and Michael’s] relationship and taking things out of context.”

It’s clearly worked, with the BalletBoyz making a series of appearances on television in recent months As a sharp contrast, the second piece is very much a return to Charles’ roots.

It has been given the name A Quarter Plus Green, for no other reason than it is a shade of colour that the choreographer often uses on the lighting rig for his work.

“There’s not a lot I can actually tell you about it really as it’s very abstract”, admits Charles.

"There are lots of different transformations of light and music before it ends with a real wall of sound.

“I suppose it’s like a long exposed picture of the sunset stretching out across the horizon. I really want to capture this transformation of time, it’s quite cinematic in some ways.”

Charles Linehan Company

Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, New Road

Saturday, May 7, and Sunday, May 8, at 8pm, from £15.