Drag balletWhy the satire of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is on point

A MAN in a tutu might elicit a quick laugh. A man en pointe in ribboned slippers, knocking off 24 fouettées with technical precision and élan? That laughter will turn to disbelief, amazement and then arrive at delirious delight. The phenomenon is not new. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo—the name is meant to be ridiculous—is a company of classically trained male dancers who have been touring their heady mix of high art and comedy around the world for 40 years.

Tory Dobrin, the current director, explains that the troupe grew out of the gay liberation movement in America in the 1970s; gender-bending satirical treatments of theatre, opera and dance aimed to increase the visibility of gay performers and to celebrate the extravagant traditions of those artforms. The Trocks, as they are now affectionately known, are the only company from that time still thriving.

In an age of LGBTQ awareness, they are not so subversive—“with greater acceptance, there’s less shock,” Mr Dobrin concedes—and their fanbase has morphed from a largely gay one to a mainstream, international one. Their longevity is partly down to the fact that the target of the parody is not gender, but ballet: its manners and conventions, its personalities and its history. Imperial and Soviet Russia provides the fodder for many jokes, with characters such as Nadia Doumiafeyva, Ludmila Beaulemova, Mikhail Mypansarov and several members of the Legupski family. “As soon as the audience hears those names,” says Mr Dobrin, “they know they’re allowed to laugh.”

When the Trocks perform in London this week, kicking off a 12-venue British tour, they will present two mixed programmes, including their signature ballet “The Dying Swan” (who moults copiously before expiring in a heap of down), and their famous “Swan Lake Act II” (with low-tech props and mishaps which are only a small exaggeration of what ballet lovers might recall as typical of many an old-fashioned touring production from eastern Europe). Extracts from 19th-century ballets such as “Esmeralda”, “Paquita” and “Raymonda”, none of them commonly staged today, as well as a set piece from “Napoli”, an old Danish ballet likewise out of fashion, will be performed. The “Napoli” section has required them to study and perfect an entirely different period technique. “We didn’t set out to be conservators of old ballets, it just happened,” says Mr Dobrin. He might have added that doing ballets which are well out of copyright gives the Trocks carte blanche to have fun with them.

A lot of enjoyment is had in rehearsal, but the dancers are competitive, setting up impromptu pirouette contests after class. “This is a comedy company, and there’s an element of camp, but ballet is hard,” Mr Dobrin says. “It’s hard to be a good ballet dancer, and it’s really hard to dance on point. So there is a certain lunatic element to these guys.” Every one of the group’s 18 members has a chance of being a soloist, which is unusual in ballet companies, though they have to earn their stripes dancing in the back row of the swans before making a bid for the Swan Queen. Eventually, each dancer may be invited to offer his own comic take on a role, whether that be Odette from “Swan Lake”, or Benno, the irritatingly bouncy “friend to the Prince” that most modern productions have quietly dropped. This personal input and rotating casting means that fans can see the same show several times and always chuckle at fresh gags.

The skill of the Trocks’ comedy lies in its different layers of appeal. The loving send-ups of arcane detail tickle the cognoscenti, while the perfectly timed slapstick offers belly laughs for all. Mr Dobrin keeps a keen sense of what’s truly funny by listening to the audience, cutting repetition and applying his own taste. He avoids jokes that are smutty. “If the comedy goes to the edge, that’s fine. But the minute I feel it’s leaning to the dark side, the whole thing stops working.”

While it may sound like a contradiction, the Trocks are traditionalists, honouring the original essence as well as the detail of these old ballets even as they poke fun at their excesses. The fetishising of the tutu has a place within that history, too. Where once a largely male audience was attracted by the prospect of the publicly sanctioned display of women’s legs, the Trocks have turned that titillation on its head. “Plus, as well as being pretty, a tutu is so much fun to dance in”, Mr Dobrin avows: they are “wonderfully taut and supportive” for men. Funny how these things work out.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo open at the Peacock Theatre, London, on September 11th, and tour Britain until November 3rd