Trocks’ drag ballet bringing 50th anniversary tour to Hancher

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo performs ballet the likes of which you’ve never seen before — unless you’ve been at Hancher Auditorium for the troupe’s previous Iowa City stops.

The Trocks are returning Wednesday night, Feb. 21, 2024, with a program spanning their 50-year history.

It’s ballet, it’s classical for the most part, it’s performed in tutus for the most part, and it’s performed by men in all parts.

You won’t see facial hair, but that’s the only manscaping required, and all tattoos must be covered. Since body shaving is more popular these days, the upcoming Hancher audience may not see hairy armpits or tufts of chest hair, like in 1980, when Artistic Director Tory Dobrin began dancing with the Trocks.

In short, it’s drag ballet, performed primarily en pointe.

And it’s unbelievably good — and hilarious.

In two of the troupe’s signature works from “Swan Lake,” the elegant young swans dance across the stage, occasionally crashing into each other, and needless to say, the Dying Swan takes forever to die. As a lover of ballet, I was dying by the end of these particular pieces performed at Hancher about 40 years ago.

What’s in a name?

According to the troupe’s website, the company was formed in 1974 to “playfully” parody classical ballet with an all-gay, all-male cast that performed in New York City’s underground scene. By mid-1975, the Trocks moved onward and upward, hiring a full-time teacher and ballet mistress, thanks to qualifying for the National Endowment for the Arts Touring Program. Thus began an international trek that has taken the Trocks to more than 660 cities in 43 countries.

The name was a play on “all the old Russian companies,” Torbin noted, including Les Ballet Russes, which in 1923, became the official ballet of the Monte Carlo Opera, and adopted the name Les Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo.

Acknowledging that “Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo” is a mouthful, hence the nickname “the Trocks,” Torbin said the founders “would have never given (us) this name if they knew we were gonna last 50 years.”

In keeping with the parody theme, all of the dancers have been given “silly faux Russian names,” Torbin said, as well as silly backgrounds. Click on their photos on trockadero.org/company/dancers/ and you’ll see such pseudonyms as counter-revolutionary Anya Marx, famed country western ballerina Ludmila Beaulemova, and Tatiana Youbetyabootskaya.

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It’s an international troupe, with half the members from Japan, Cuba, Spain, Mexico and Italy, and the other half being American-born, Tobin said.

While demand for the Trocks is high, and the management team has floated the idea of having multiple troupes to send on tour, Torbin is determined not to take that leap.

“I don't want to,” he said in a phone interview from his home in New York City. “And I don't want to because this is not stock, where you just go out and you hire a bunch of percussionists and good performers, and they're able to do it. This is really a refined kind of work, and it really takes a lot of care,” so he has said no.

The California native, now 70, became a troupe member sort of by accident, when a friend from his ballet class in New York said he was going to audition for the company, which needed dancers for a 12-week tour in South America.

“So I went and got the job,” Torbin said. “I didn’t have a plan like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna stay and make this my career,’ but boy has it turned into one.”

He called that 1980 tour “interesting, because it was at the height of the military dictatorships down there, and the society was super repressive. …

“I don’t think the government knew that we were a drag company. I think they thought we were the ballet of Monte Carlo, or they probably would have never let us in. The audience soon found out. And so I think the public was kind of using us to express their desire for freedom of spirit.

“The audiences were just fantastic — like major fantastic. I've never experienced anything like that before, because in ballet, everyone claps and they’re appreciative, and they like it. But this was like a sports arena type thing. And that's addictive for a performer.”

Alas, Torbin was injured in the mid-1980s, but when the general director didn’t want to go on the France tour, he asked Torbin to become the road manager. Then the AIDS epidemic set in.

“We went through a really bad time on many fronts,” Torbin said. “And when we came into the 1990s, the company needed a lot of attention, and I was there to give my attention to it.”

These days, the staff is small, “so all four of us bleed into each other’s jobs,” conducting rehearsals and teaching classes on the road. But Torbin is staying in New York during this 50th anniversary tour, doing the administrative work. In addition to speaking with The Gazette on Feb. 8, he also spoke that day with the orchestra conductor for an upcoming Kennedy Center performance, and with a new choreographer coming to the troupe in later in the year.

“There's a lot to organize,” he said. “It's sort of like a mom-and-pop store. You have to count the money in the cash register, you have sweep the floor, you have to stock the shelves, you have to order the food. We all do it together.”

In Iowa City

New works regularly are rotated into the repertoire, to keep the shows fresh for cities and venues where the Trocks most often perform. And their shows generally offer a mix of classical and contemporary works.

“But if we’re coming to Iowa every five to 10 years, we really have to present our best work, and that’s what we do,” Torbin said. “We program our best work in areas that we don’t go to that often.”

The anniversary tour incorporates ballets from every decade of the troupe’s existence, Torbin said, noting that Hancher audiences will see an early work, “Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet,” as well as “Paquita,” “Swan Lake, Act II,” “The Dying Swan,” a pas de deux to be announced and other pieces that keep the dancers on their toes.

What’s the pointe?

Men dancing en pointe was uncommon when the troupe was formed.

“Now, it’s a different story entirely,” Torbin said. “I happen to have studied with some teachers in Texas for a short time that actually put the guys en pointe at the barre only, just to strengthen their feet, which is a very good idea. So I was comfortable to get up and down en pointe. But that was unusual back then.

“And then even in New York, if you tool an open class in the 1980s, there were only two teachers in the entire city — and there were lots of teachers — who would let you take class en pointe, or even for 15 minutes when the teacher had pointe work with the girls.

“But now it’s completely 100 percent normal. Even people who don’t have any interest in dancing en pointe have pointe shoes, and they go up and down. And there’s a couple of guys who are in the Boston Ballet who dance en pointe regularly, so it’s completely changed now.”

But just because they wear tutus and dance en pointe, the Trocks men will never look like women — nor are they trying for that effect. Torbin is quick to point out the differences, saying women dance with a different energy.

“God gave everyone what they need to support their own weight,” he said, comparing the “brute force” spectators see when watching Andre Agassi play tennis, versus the aesthetic grace of Steffi Graf.

“It’s the same with us,” he said. “We’re not going for the female finesse. We’re going for the blunt instrument pointe work. We’re going for the male attack. That brings out the comedy. It also shows the difference between a male and female dancer, and it lets you look at these ballets in a completely different way.”

At the end of the day, at the end of the ballet, the whole point of the Trocks is for the dancers and audience to have fun.

“For the audience, the most important thing is that they come and they enjoy themselves. We’re an all-male comedy ballet company. … And if the audience is enjoying themselves, the performers onstage are also enjoying themselves.”

Technique is important, too, he said, but the entertainment factor is vital, especially for someone like a ballet-hating husband whose wife is dragging him along for the ride. It’s also a show that’s appropriate for all ages, across the generations, he said.

“The most important element is entertainment and fun, so that when people leave the theater, they say, ‘Wow, that was really great. And I didn’t know they were such good dancers.’ If people say that when they’re leaving the theater, then we have been successful.”

Comments: (319) 368-8508; diana.nollen@thegazette.com