General
Director
Eugene
McDougle
Artistic
Director
Tory Dobrin
Ballet Mistress
Pamela
Pribisco
Technical
Director
Bob Bursey
Company
Manager
Isabel
Martinez Rivera
Programme
Giselle (Act II)
Pas de Deux
I Wanted to
Dance With You
at the Café
of Experience
Russian Dance
Don Quixote
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Les Ballets
Trockadero de Monte Carlo
Sadler's Wells
25 Sep - 13 Oct 2001
The ballerina Cynthia Gregory had short hair near the end of her career, but when she performed classical roles she pinned on a false bun. Such deliberate fakery might seem ridiculous to the uninitiated. But then, Odette without the feminine knot of hair is as unthinkable in the ballet world as Odette without toe shoes.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo exists to mock details like this one, showing up the deliberate fakery of all dancing. The troupe – 28 years old by now – is composed of 14 men who perform every role, "male" and "female", in a full range of classical and modern pieces. In artificial buns, long white tutus, and toe shoes, a troupe of male Wilis dances the second act of Giselle. In Don Quixote, a corps of male "waitresses" flirts coquettishly en pointe and frames a male-male duo of the village beauty and "her" lover. In various pas de deux, men playing men lift men playing women–or vice versa. It is astonishingly easy at times to forget that these are drag performances, so arbitrary are the dance mannerisms, we realize, that signal "male" and "female". And gender-bending is only the first of the jokes. The troupe's choreography exaggerates details and includes out-and-out physical punch lines: a collision in what would be a cliché-perfect garland, a turn that goes on a bit too long, an arabesque-train that runs into itself, a fish-dive that brings the ballerina dangerously close to the floor. Ballet mime performed a hairsbreadth too broadly shows how little sense the conventional movements–pointing to the ring finger to indicate marriage, for example–always made. In these moments or just after, the dancers glance knowingly at the audience: Look, they seem to say, how close "normal" dancing is to outrageous comedy
The camp mockery takes in more than just moves and steps. Fake names and company biographies in the program present a Maria Tallchief parody who is the "last of the great American Indian ballerinas," as well as Klaus Youssoupovtu," "the first defector whose leave-taking was accomplished at the virtual insistence of the defectees." Better–and subtler–are the program notes for the dances themselves. In Don Quixote, we learn, the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza have been eliminated, though the audience "may ... imagine the aristocratic vagrant and his constant companion ... wandering about aimlessly and getting in everyone's way, which in most versions is all they do anyway." This is perfectly true, and points out the arbitrary borrowings of most ballet "plots". (A note for Giselle informs us that the décor is by "Edward Gory"–another nice touch.)
Big old Bolshoi-style Russian ballet is the easiest to ridicule. Almost too easy. In the current program, Russian Dance is a one-joke piece about an aging ballerina who relies on mannerisms when she can no longer handle her choreography. Its more obvious comedy seems too broad, with too little dancing. But the Trockadero troupe wisely trains its powers of observation and satire on other forms of dance besides traditional ballet. I Wanted to Dance with You at the Café of Experience is a hilarious barefoot piece, danced with all the over-the-top melodrama of "postmodern" dance's most psychological efforts.
Parody like this depends for its integrity on high production values and dancing skill. All the set and costume details are just right: the long, Romantic skirts of the Wilis, the wild dresses of the Gypsies in Don Quixote, the exaggeratedly dramatic lighting in the "café of experience." And the dancing is excellent. When the troupe began, the novelty lay in seeing how well men could dance en pointe, and it is still a pleasant surprise to realize that heavier bodies can hop around, balance, and turn on their toes. The dancers have gotten better and better; their turns are particularly impressive. In Don Quixote Manolo Molina (as Fifi Barkova, as Kitri) even performs a series of fouettés–the whipping spins that most female dancers have trouble with. The group's light-hearted effects depend on technique and training that is anything but light.
And the effects themselves might not be so light-hearted after all. There are plenty of jokes in this program aimed at those well versed in dance and dance history. But the evening would not be wasted on the novice balletgoer, either: it is a nice introduction to what the medium can do. The dancers and choreographers of Trockadero clearly know dance–all sorts of dance, in all its silly and not-so-silly trappings–with the inside-and-out thoroughness that comes of dedication and love. Trockadero calls itself "a classical ballet company," and the adjective is not a joke: that technique imbued with affection and skill can even make fun of itself is a surprising but thrilling result of classicist principles. The knowing travesty of Trockadero might be the best form of tribute.
Siobhan Peiffer
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