Les Ballet Trockedero de Monte Carlo

Last weekend, we went to Chandler Center for the Arts to see Les Ballet Trockedero de Monte Carlo.

It’s an all-male ballet where the men do all the on pointe dancing.  Which I guess is not supposed to be possible. Or at least not believed back in 1975 when the troupe was created.

While we waited for the show to start, we read the program, which we almost didn’t pick up.  There were faux biographies of all the “female” dancers with names like Dumbchenko, Laptova, Namethattunenova, Leftova. Very creative and entertaining.  Plus real biographies of the dancers, most classically trained ballerinos.  

None of us have seen a real ballet – unless you count the bits I’ve seen in old MGM musicals.  But this was impressive.

From our seats we couldn’t see house right.  But the rest of it was sublime.  Excellent dancing.  Enough humor to be entertaining.  All dance-based humor.  Non-verbal.  Like bumping into each other, a foot sliding out of position for a background dancer, an arm out of place.

From the audience reaction, I would say some attendees actually understood ballet.  There was applause for different moves, like sequential pirouettes.  Just watching the dancer’s spin made me dizzy.  I can’t turn around even once.  One dancer did at least 10 spins.

There was a weird, humorous modern dance bit in the middle, with two performers doing various odd sound effects for three dancers.  One sound effect was accomplished by the performer laying on his back and gargling.  Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious.

And an enchanting bit based on the Dying Swan where the dancer comes out to perform, shedding feathers from the tutu the entire time.

No idea how they manage to get the feathers to not fall all at once, or not at all.

Overall, very much recommend it if you get a chance.

https://trockadero.org/