|
|
|
|
|
Ballet, but not as we know it Jim
Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo Birmingham Hippodrome ***** BELLY LAUGH and ballet don't often turn
up in the same sentence . . . unless of course you are talking about Les
Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo who man manage both with aplomb. Not that this is some knockabout comedy troupe –
the Trocks, as their fans know them – are much more subtle and
sophisticated than that. Dress a load of blokes up in tutus and tights and
send them out to do a ballet scene and you have a sketch, two minutes
tops, three if they are good, before the novelty wears off – the Trocks,
all men, with a cast of 16, manage a complete evening without the humour
even starting to wear thin. The secret is first and foremost great ability as
ballet dancers. Just as, for example, Tommy Cooper had to be an
extremely talented magician to create tricks which went so
disastrously and hilariously wrong, the Trocks have to be able to dance
to the highest standard to parody what is their chosen profession, and
send it up they do, unmercifully. Ballet, and particularly the Russian classical
ballet of the early 1900s, is probably the most stylised of Western art
forms with its slow, deliberate walks, formal steps and start
positions, affected gestures . . . and well known dances. In its purest form it is graceful and elegant
full of beauty and emotion but . . . .add a little exaggeration of the
affected movement, throw in a few mistakes, usually with someone on the
wrong end of a flying leg or ending in the wrong place, the odd
collision here and there and then slip in a bit of petty jealousies and
bitchiness, with the odd glare, gesture, trip or push and you have . . .
Les Sylphides, for example, with music by Chopin. It is a high standard
of ballet, with a few bonus flounces, mishaps, altercations and
affectations thrown in. Or we have the black swan pas de deux from Swan
Lake – with white swan Odette desperate to get into the act. Some of the
humour is visual and dates back to the silent movie era such as casting
Yakatarina Verbosovich (real name Chase Johnsey), a tall well-built
dancer, as Odile, and Innokenti Smoktumuchsky (Carlos Hopuy), one of the
smallest dancers, as the Prince.
Johnsey, with the company since 2004 joined from
the Florida Dance Theatre and, amid the humour, showed in the classic
Odile solo with a dazzling number of fouettés en
tournant that he was a fine dancer as was Hopuy who joined almost
a year ago with national ballets of Cuba, Costa Rica and Ballet San
Antonio on his CV. Party piece of the night is the Dying Swan with
Ida Nevesayneva (Paul Ghiselin) one of four dancers who take on this
Trocks signature role. This is just pure, deadpan comedy worthy of a
Chaplin or Keaton. First there are the feathers falling from the
tutu, enough for several mattresses, duvets, pillows and cushions, with
several sacks to spare, along with the odd avian gesture or flutter,
wobbly legs and finally death, all en pointe. A performance followed by
a long, long curtain call – a send up of the normal ballet entrance
through the closed curtain to an adoring audience. Ghiselin, incidentally is a Trock veteran having
been with the company since 1995 and is now 51 – which is a remarkable
testament to his fitness. He is the oldest member of the company. The
youngest is 18. We also had La Vivandiere Pas De Six with music
by Pugni and ended with Walpurgis Night with music by Gounod, which was
based on the Bolshoi's Valpurgeyeva Noch which apparently the Russians
see as a piece of Soviet balletic camp . . . if they think theirs
is camp . . . . The encore for this talented ballet company was
. . . a morris dance. What else.. An after show discussion with artistic director
Tory Dobrin revealed that the Trocks are approaching their 40th
anniversary after being formed in New York in 1974 in the explosion of
drag and gay shows and the blossoming of the gay rights movement after
the Stonewall Riots in Greenwhich Village. Dobrin said: “It is the only company with its
roots in that time. We are not a gay show though. We are a dance
company. Many of our members are gay but we are not a gay show.” Like any other ballet company, he said, there are
classes and rehearsals, practice and performance and the idea was not to
have men trying to be ballerinas, but men dancing parts normally danced
by women – women's steps and dances but with male aggression. As for en pointe, which is unusual for male
dancers, Dobrin said it takes an experienced male ballet dancer five
minutes to dance en point, a year to do it comfortably and two to reach
the stage of confidence and musculature to attempt more complex steps
and roles. For a none ballet dancer for five minutes read years by the
way . . . For a dancer it is adding a new step, for a none dancer
it is adding a whole new way of moving. The Trocks are fun, they enjoy what they are
doing and the audience enjoy them, but first and foremost they are a
ballet company with considerable skill and ability with gives them a
platform for their gentle and affectionate dig at the foibles and
affections of ballet – which, from the number of Birmingham Royal Ballet
dancers in the audience – is appreciated even by those on the receiving
end. Roger Clarke
|
|
|
|
