Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Travel To New Orleans For Mardi Gras

For the first time since 1983, the lovable all-male company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo will travel to New Orleans in January for a one-night only performance to kick off the Mardi Gras season. Affectionately known as the "Trocks," the ballet troupe will take to the stage at the Mahalia Jackson Theater of Performing Arts on Friday, January 29 at 7:30 pm.

By blending a passion for classical ballet with an affectionate parody of great choreographers, The Trocks prove that hairy men in tutus and makeup can, indeed, dance on pointe without falling on their faces. The evening begins with their signature work, Le Lac Des Cygnes (Act II) of Swan Lake, as staged by Trutti Gasparineti after Lev Ivanov and set to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Also on the program is Patterns in Space, a modern work in the style of Merce Cunningham, and La Viviendere, a ballet set to music by Cesare Pugni that introduced the Polka of Bohemia to 19th-century London. The Trocks close the performance with their variation on Marius Petipa's classic French work Paquita, with music by Ludwig Minkus.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was originally founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts who wanted to present a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet in parody form. The dancers adopt outrageous stage names, such as Ida Nevasayneva, Katarina Bychkova and Minnie Van Driver, and create outlandish back stories and alter egos to match. But a performance by the Trocks is more than just parody. "The comedy works because the dancers' technical prowess goes far beyond what the conceit of guys-in-tutus might initially suggest," says the Minneapolis Star Ledger. "These are artists who can toss off a dozen rapid-fire fouettés in their size-13 pointe shoes without turning a hair on their bun-headed wigs." The Trocks' inspired combination of a loving knowledge of dance and impeccable comic approach garners increasing national and international attention, and the company has appeared in over thirty countries and over five hundred cities worldwide since its founding.

In celebration of the Trocks return to New Orleans and the start of Mardi Gras, NOBA and BRAVO (Ballet Resource And Volunteer Organization) will also host a post-performance masquerade celebration with the dancers of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Chaired by Chet Pourciau and Eric Hess, the party will be held at the home of Vincent Saia and Glynn Stephens, and attendees will have the opportunity to meet the dancers. Tickets to the party are $50 with purchase of tickets to the Trocks performance, and $75 without Trocks performance purchase. Proceeds benefit the New Orleans Ballet Association.

The Trocks performance begins at 7:30pm; ticket prices range from $20 to $125. Students and seniors (65 and older) receive a $7 discount off the regular ticket prices of $40 and higher. Group discounts also are available. For tickets or information, call the New Orleans Ballet Association Box Office at (504) 522-0996. Tickets may be purchased online through www.nobadance.com, or via Ticketmaster at (504) 522-5555 or www.ticketmaster.com.

The performance is supported by Lilia Carrion and Andrew Gross, and Barry J. Cooper, Jr. and Stuart H. Smith.

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 the dancers are affectionately known, quickly garnered a major critical essay by Arlene Croce in The New Yorker which, 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 a loving knowledge of dance, impeccable 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.

The 1975-76 season was a year of growth and full professionalization. The company added management, qualified for the National Endowment for the Arts Touring Program, hired a full-time teacher and ballet mistress to oversee daily classes and rehearsals, and made its first extended tours of the United States and Canada. Packing, unpacking, and repacking tutus and drops, stocking giant-sized toe shoes by the case, and running for planes and chartered buses all became routine parts of life.

Since those beginnings, the Trocks has established itself as a major dance phenomenon throughout the world. The company has participated in dance festivals in Turkey, 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?, Real People, On-Stage America, visiting with Kermit and Miss Piggy on Muppet Babies, and a BBC Omnibus special on the world of ballet, hosted by Jennifer Saunders. The Trocks also had its own solo specials on national networks in Japan and Germany, as well as a French television special with Julia Migenes. A documentary was filmed and aired internationally by the acclaimed British arts program, The South Bank Show, and the Company was featured in The Egg, the PBS program about arts in America. Several performances were taped by a consortium of Dutch, French and Japanese TV networks at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, France, for worldwide broadcast and DVD distribution.

The Trocks' numerous tours have been both popular and critical successes - the company's frenzied annual schedule has included six tours to Australia and New Zealand, twenty-four to Japan (where annual summer tours have created a nation-wide cult following and a fan club), ten to South America, three tours to South Africa, and fifty-five tours of Europe. In the United States, the company has become a regular part of the college and university circuit, in addition to frequent presentations in all of the 50 states. The company has appeared in over thirty countries and over five hundred 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, Brisbane, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cologne, Glasgow, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Melbourne, Moscow (at the famed Bolshoi Theater), Paris (at the Théâtre Musical de Paris Châtelet), Perth, Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, 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 has 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, or 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. The company will, as it has done for thirty-five years, "Keep on Trockin'."

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which believes that a great nation deserves great art; a grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council as administered by the Arts Council of New Orleans (ACNO); a Community Arts Grant made possible through the City of New Orleans as administered by ACNO; a grant from the Louisiana State Arts Council through the Louisiana Division of the Arts and the NEA.

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