Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is a New York ballet company . Through her parodic interpretations of famous classical ballet pieces at a high dance level, she achieved an international reputation. The company consists entirely of men.
history
The company, which is also called Les Trocks or The Trocks for short , is not, as the name suggests, in the Principality of Monaco , but in New York. Its beginnings go back to the 1960s. In the wake of the emerging US lesbian and gay movement , they made their debut as a midnight off-off Broadway dance theater in lofts . In this early period the company consisted of amateurs with a talent for movement and non-professional dancers. With their burlesque performances, they quickly became popular in the booming New York dance scene of the early 1970s. You were invited to appearances in renowned and established theaters from 1974; performed at the Brooklyn Academie of Music , the Palace Theater in New York, and the Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley . The Trocks became internationally known through articles in various magazines and magazines, such as Variety and Daily Telegraph , as well as a photo report by Richard Avedon in Vogue .
In 1975 and 1976 the troupe professionalized itself, engaged professional ballet masters, managers and dancers and went on tour through the USA and Canada. This was followed by appearances on the international stage, for example in Bodrum , the Netherlands , Madrid , Spoleto , Turin , London , Vienna , Melbourne and even at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. They were also featured in various television programs in the USA and around the world, for example on the Dick Cavett Show , in What's My Line? , Real People and On-Stage America , as well as broadcasts on the BBC and Japanese television. In April 2009 they performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris .
The company was and is closely associated with the gay movement. Most of their dancers are gay . The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s also claimed victims among the dancers. A page on the company's website commemorates the dead.
Program and artist
The Trocks are a humorous reminder of the glamorous Russian ballet under Sergei Djagilew , which celebrated its appearances in Monte Carlo in the years after 1910. The artist names of the dancers are pseudo-Russian word creations. The stars of the troupe included Irina Kolesterolikova, Svetlana Lofatkina and Juri Smirnov. The female roles are danced in a classic ballerina costume with a tutu .
The repertoire includes well-known classical ballet pieces such as Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Giselle by Adolphe Adam . In the interpretation of the Trocks, however, parodies and slapstick interludes inevitably belong to it, for example exaggeratedly pathetic gestures, slipping on the stage, grips and kicks on the buttocks or letting go of the partner in full rotation so that he ends up swinging in the scenery. A total of around 40 pieces belong to the repertoire, including modern choreographies, for example by Martha Graham and Pina Bausch . For the performance in Paris in 2009 a parody of a choreography by Merce Cunningham of the piece Patterns in Space by John Cage was included in the program.
The company's head, Tory Dobrin, describes the program as straightforwardly political: “Every time you let someone wear the opposite sex, it becomes political. People feel compelled to take a fresh look at the gender issue, without any preconceived ideas or stereotypes. ”Dobrin emphasizes, however, that this is not a gay show for a gay audience. The focus is on the art of dance: "High-class dance, comedy, interesting pieces, wonderful costumes, good music and safe, mature dancers, that is what defines the quality of the troupe."
literature
- Rosita Boisseau: La technique et le burlesque des garçons en tutu . Le Monde , April 21, 2009, p. 23
References and comments
- ↑ engl. Cholesterol = cholesterol
- ↑ low fat
- ↑ a b Quoted from Rosita Boisseau in Le Monde , April 21, 2009, p. 23
DVD recordings
- Les Ballets Trockadero , Vol. 1, Harmonia Mundi, Edition Bel Air
- Les Ballets Trockadero , Vol. 2, Harmonia Mundi, Edition Bel Air