Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

Find ways to make thematic connections to these suggested topics:

• Dance: Ballet, Contemporary
• Theatre Arts: Stage Makeup
• Comedy & Parody
• Community Engagement
• American Studies
• Gender & Sexuality Studies

Dive deeper with these resources that provide additional information about the performers, the history of the art form and the artistic process.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo website

“Men in Tights and Tutus: The Trocks Turn 50, Humor Intact” — The New York Times (Access via UMN Libraries)

“Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Review — Arabesques, Pratfalls and a Swan on Wheels” — The Guardian

“The Trocks, an All-Male Dance Troupe, Balance Camp and Skill” — The New York Times (Access via UMN Libraries)

Coleman, Bertram E., III. “Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo: A History of the Company, 1974 to 1990.” PhD dissertation, The University of Texas at Austin, 1993. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (9413466). (Access via UMN Libraries)

“The Trocks Celebrate Their Golden Anniversary” — Pointe Magazine

LGBTQIA+ Studies: A Resource Guide, “1969: The Stonewall Uprising” — Library of Congress

“The Trocks’ Deadly Serious Spoofing; City Ballet’s Revitalized Coppélia” — Observer

Video: “‘Ballerina Boys’, Official Trailer, ‘American Masters’ PBS”

Start a conversation about the performance or encourage reflection, using these questions as inspiration.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the world’s foremost gender-skewering comic ballet company, was founded in 1974 in the wake of the Stonewall Uprising, a monumental clash between police and LGBTQ+ protesters in New York. Since the company’s inception, their highly subversive viewpoint has grown into crowd-pleasing, globe-spanning entertainment, presenting playful parodies of traditional, classical ballet, with men performing all the roles.

• How does the Trocks’ self-described gender-skewering comedic ballet company subvert and celebrate historical ballet traditions?
• How might the experience of a dancer performing for the Trocks be similar or different today versus 50 years ago? How might the experience of an audience member be similar or different?

Dance aficionados and first-time audiences alike will revel in the technical skill and uproarious antics of the “Trocks,” as they are affectionately known. “The level of dancing is now so high that we’re less and less inclined to laugh and more and more likely to ponder the ambiguities of a male dancer who can actually be convincing as Odette, Giselle, Paquita,” Robert Gottlieb wrote in The New York Observer in 2009.

• How might the Trocks’ advanced technical skills be utilized to both engage audiences and subvert ideas of gender in culture and dance?
• How might dance, or art more generally, change cultural ideas of gender?

According to The Berkshire Edge, “The Trocks gracefully and ingeniously combine slapstick, farce and clowning with pure artistry of dance … The company has a knack for expertly walking the fine line between caricature of ballet and dance (and themselves), and complete reverence for that same art form.”

• How does comedy break down barriers between artists and audience members, preparing the audience for a more participatory and collaborative experience?
• What differentiates clowning, parody and slapstick comedy, and how might they each bring unique elements to caricature and reverence of ballet and dance?