It isn't everyday that a ballerina prances onto the stage with a thick mane of chest hair protruding from the costume. However, at last night's performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, male dancers dominated the female ballerina role.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is a comedic ballet company that parodies ballets and choreography by famous ballet choreographers and producers, including Sergi Diaghilev, Michel Fokine and Marius Petipa.
Known as the Trock
the ballet company was founded in 1974 to present classical ballet in a playful form that would appeal to audiences from a prima ballerina to a total ballet novice. The troupe has traveled all over the United States and the world and will begin a tour of Japan soon.
The 15 male Trocks dancers each have two pseudo identities, one male and one female. Complete with character biographies, the ballerinas are bursting with personality and sass. Ballerina Jaques d'Aniels was no doubt named for a famous brand of whiskey and Tatiana Youbetyabootskaya likes to get down with her bad self.
The program biographies were also a riot. Male ballet dancer Kravlji Snepek comes to the Trockadero from his split-level birthplace in Siberia where he excelled in toe tap
aerobics and Hawaiian
the program said.
At first glance, it is hard to tell that the ballerinas on stage are actually men. Clad in elaborate wigs, feminine costumes and even blinged-out rhinestone earrings, the men really take over the role of ballerinas.
The first ballet, Les Sylphides
parodies the choreography of Fokine. Twelve men, with 11 in toe shoes and dresses, take the stage and awed the audience with their twirls, jumps and spins. The audience roared at the dancers' fancy footwork in toe shoes.
It was great seeing men in pointe (toe) shoes
because they usually don't dance in them
said Becca Roth, a sophomore dance major.
Comedy was an important factor to the production. Facial expressions made by the background dancers caused the audience to crack up at serious parts of the ballet. During a pas de deux, or duet, between two dancers, one bored ballerina crawled off stage, grabbed an apple and proceeded to eat it while waiting for his next entrance in the piece.
At the end of Les Sylphides
a stagehand brought a bouquet of flowers to the lead ballerina and a bottle of wine for the male dancer. As the curtains closed after the final applause for the piece, the ballerina snatched the bottle of wine from her partner and threw the bouquet into his arms.
The second act consisted of a pas de deux, a grande pas de quatre (a ballet done by a group of four) and a hilarious rendition of the dying swan number from Swan Lake. Roth said this was her favorite part of the performance.
Dressed in a white leotard with rhinestone accents and a huge feather tutu, the dying swan missed its spotlight cue and wandered onto the stage, leaving feathers everywhere. As the swan inched closer to its death
the feathers took over the stage. The swan tried to collect its fallen feathers until it finally took its dramatic death on stage. The audience roared with applause as the swan took its many bows and milked the audience for every last clap it could.
All of the dancers took the stage for their final bow at the end of the performance. As an encore performance looked promising, the troupe ended its fantastic comedic performance with a hilarious parody of the Irish step dancing show, Riverdance. The dancers performed variations of Irish jigs, still fully dressed in their ballerina attire.
