In the past few years there has been an emerging discussion about ballet’s rigid gender roles, and male or non-binary dancers performing traditionally female roles. But Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo were ahead of that curve by nearly 50 years.
The Trocks, as they’re known, are an all-male troupe founded in New York in the 1970s who dance classical ballerina roles in pointe shoes and tutus. They perform with serious technique alongside high camp and slapstick hilarity; they adore ballet and relish skewering its tropes and traditions. They are somehow both a very niche concern – referencing an obscure Soviet ballet or mocking the specifics of a particular piece of choreography – and purveyors of the broadest humour and appeal. Who doesn’t enjoy a symphony of pratfalls and perfectly timed mistakes?
With an extensive rep, the company is dancing different programmes in London and on a UK tour, but everyone will get to see their send-up of Swan Lake, which is the highlight of this opening night. It has the tightest comic timing and most engaging characters, plus technically impressive dancing from swan queen Odette, AKA Takaomi Yoshino, AKA Varvara Laptopova (all the dancers have amusing drag names and backstories). Yoshino punctuates poised arabesques with hammy grins to the audience. He pops up later as Pan in the nymphs-and-fauns fantasy Valpurgeyeva Noch, dancing everyone else off the stage.
The Trocks aren’t all about being the “best” dancer. They are mostly about descending into farce while paying loving attention to balletic details (as in Nightcrawlers, a take on Jerome Robbins), or making simple visual gags, like a pas de trois with two very tall ballerinas and a partner who reaches only to their nipples – all the while subverting ballet’s (and society’s) norms.
In some of the hoary old ballets, the line between actuality and parody is as thin as an arched eyebrow, and they walk it knowingly. When sorcerer Rothbart pulls a swan on wheels across the stage, it’s not far from a few serious productions I’ve seen. Shrieks of laughter erupt in the auditorium. They have their shtick and it works, even if it does wear a little thin at times.
At the Peacock theatre, London, until 10 September, followed by a second programme, 12-17 September. Then touring.
