'LES BALLETS TROCKADREO DE MONTE CARLO' At Joyce 12/16

The Joyce Theater is thrilled to welcome back LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo for a special three-week holiday engagement, December 16 – January 4.  The season will feature two different programs, each with a Joyce premiere, performed by the primo ballerinas that have made this troupe the world's foremost all-male comic ballet company.  To purchase tickets, please call JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or via the internet at www.joyce.org.  The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street) in Chelsea.

LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo (Tory Dobrin, Artistic Director), the tutu-fabulous all-male international dance sensation, returns to The Joyce Theater with two joyful programs just in time for the holidays.  With an astounding mastery of ballet technique, flamboyant personalities, and maybe a little more chest hair than your average Giselle, the world-renowned ballerinas of the TROCKS illuminate the passion, tragedy, and joy of classical ballet, all squeezed into size 12 pointe shoes.

With legends like Olga Supphozova, Sveltlana Lofatkina and Lariska Dumbchenko returning with the company, LES BALLETS TROCKADERO is guaranteed to provide a shimmering, comedic, and superlatively danced evening of family-friendly ballet this holiday season.

The company kicks off its three-week season on Tuesday, December 16 with a program that includes The Joyce premiere of Majismas along with favorites from the company's repertory, including Swan Lake (Act 2) and La Trovatiara.  The second program, premiering on Friday, December 19, features favorites such as Go For Barocco and Paquita and The Joyce premiere of Giselle (Act 2).
                                                                                                                                           Program A:
Swan Lake (Act 2), Pas de deux to be announced, La Trovatiara, Majismas*

Program B:

Giselle*, Pas de deux to be announced, Go for Barocco, Paquita
*Joyce Theater premiere

 

LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo will perform a three-week season at The Joyce Theater from December 16 – January 4.  Free post-performance "Humanities" dialogue following the Wednesday, December 17 performance.  New this season, The Joyce has updated its pricing structure to help make dance accessible to a wider audience. Scaling the theater in three tiers, tickets for these performances are $19; $35; $59 (for Joyce Members $26; $44), and can be arranged by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.Joyce.org.  For more information about the TROCKS, including tour schedule, please visit www.trockadero.org.  The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

Founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet in parody form and en travesti, LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo first performed in the late-late shows in Off-Off Broadway lofts. The TROCKS, as they are affectionately known, quickly garnered a major critical essay by Arlene Croce in The New Yorker, and combined with reviews in The New York Times and The Village Voice, established the Company as an artistic and popular success.  By mid 1975, the TROCKS' inspired blend of their loving knowledge of dance, their comic approach, and the astounding fact that men can, indeed, dance  en pointe  without falling flat on their faces, was being noted beyond New York.  Articles and notices in publications such as Variety, Oui, The London Daily Telegraph, as well as a Richard Avedon photo essay in Vogue, made the Company nationally and internationally known.

Since those beginnings, the TROCKS have established themselves as a major dance phenomenon throughout the world. They have participated in dance festivals in Bodrun, Holland, San Luis Potosi, Madrid, Montreal, New York, Paris, Spoleto, Turin, and Vienna.  There have been television appearances as varied as a Shirley MacLaine special, the "Dick Cavett Show," "What's My Line?" "On-Stage America," with Kermit and Miss Piggy on their show "Muppet Babies," a BBC Omibus special on the world of ballet hosted by Jennifer Saunders and have had their own solo specials on national networks in Japan and Germany, as well as a French television special with Julia Migenes.

The TROCKS' numerous tours have been both popular and critical successes - their frenzied annual schedule has included six tours to Australia and New Zealand, twenty three to Japan (where their annual summer tours have created a nation-wide cult following and a fan club), nine to South America, three tours to South Africa, and fifty two tours of Europe.  In the United States, the Company has become a regular part of the college and university circuit in addition to regular dance presentations in cities all of the 50 states. The Company has appeared in over 30 countries and  over 500 cities worldwide  since its founding in 1974.  Increasingly, the Company is presenting longer seasons, which have included extended engagements in Amsterdam, Athens, Auckland, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cologne, Hamburg, Hong Kong,  Johannesburg,  Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid,  Melbourne, Moscow (at the famed Bolshoi Theater), Paris (at the Chatelet Theater), Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Vienna and Wellington.

The Company continues to appear in benefits for international AIDS organizations such as DRA (Dancers Responding to AIDS) and Classical Action in New York City, the Life Ball in Vienna, Austria,Dancers for Life  in Toronto, Canada, and London's Stonewall Gala.  In addition, The TROCKS' have given, or participated in special benefit performances for Connecticut Ballet Theater, Ballet Hawaii, Rochester City Ballet, Sadler's Wells Theater in London and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center and Young Audiences / Arts for Learning Organization, and  the Ali Forney House, benefiting gay youths in need, in New York City.

 

The original concept of LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo has not changed.  It is a Company of professional male dancers performing the full range of the ballet and modern dance repertoire, including classical and original works in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. The comedy is achieved by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents, and underlying incongruities of serious dance.  The fact that men dance all the parts--heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, sylphs, water sprites, romantic princesses, angst-ridden Victorian ladies--enhances rather than mocks the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting and amusing the most knowledgeable, as well as novices, in the audiences.    For the future, there are plans for new works in the repertoire:  new cities, states and countries to perform in; and for the continuation of the TROCKs' original purpose:  to bring the pleasure of dance to the widest possible audience.  They will, as they have done for thirty three years, "Keep on Trockin'."

Leadership support for The Joyce Theater's 2008-2009 season has been received from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Generous support for this engagement was provided through a grant from The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc. to encourage the performance of New York City-based companies at The Joyce Theater.

Additional support for this engagement was provided with public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.  Major support for The Joyce has been provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, First Republic Bank, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Shubert Foundation and The Starr Foundation.