Tutus and Chest Hair!

AT first glance it seems to be just like any other professional ballet company pre-show warm up class...except all the dancers at the barre are men.

You can't help notice either that several of them are wearing pink satin pointe shoes, not the normal footwear for any company's male dancers.

Then one of the ensemble - Chase Johnsey, all relaxed Florida charm - walks across the stage in a tutu and the clearer picture begins to emerge.

For this is a dance company like no other, the world famous Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, where behind every outrageous diva there's the man who made her.

It's a joke that works on several levels, the simplest being that the Trocks - as they are known by their fans - are an OTT pastiche of every ageing touring Russian classical ballet company you ever saw.

Then there's the odd mix of high camp and masculinity - and if that means hairy chests emerging from glittering bodices then so be it.

On another level, it's pure Vaudeville, complete with slapstick, prat falls, and over-the-top gags at the expense of the strict conventions of ballet.

But then, rather oddly perhaps, here are moments when the dance is taken extremely seriously and there's no doubting at all that even when they're playing for laughs, the Trocks genuinely do know an Arabesque from a Pas de Chat.

The total commitment to making it look right its something that is clearly very important to Trocks artistic director Tory Dobrin, who first joined the company as a dancer in 1980, just six years after the Trocks' first off-Broadway appearance in New York.

'The 1970s were a completely different time,' Tory recalls. 'The dancers for the most part were not really dancers at all, they were actors and comedians who had movement skills.'

'And there wasn't a lot of drag going on back then so it was completely new and the guys were funny and outrageous - but I think the audience would have cheered if one of the dancers got up on pointe back then!'

As the company began to leave New York and go on the road to great acclaim, though, it became increasingly clear that the concept would have to develop - which is about the time that Tory himself joined the team as a keen young dancer.

'I crawled my way to the top!' he laughs. 'Maybe you shouldn't write that down...oh, put down whatever you want, I don't mind!'

'I didn't have a plan - I was having fun every day so I just stayed with it and here I am 30 years later.'

'Sometimes I couldn't go to sleep at night because I was looking forward to the next day so much.'

It's obvious that Tory's passion for the Trocks remains as great as ever, particularly as he works constantly to maintain the fine but extremely important balance between great dance and big laughs.  

'It's always the dilemma, too much slapstick or too much serious dance,' he concedes. 'My motto is always a little bit of everything for everybody - that's the balance I'm always trying to achieve.'

There's also the challenge of providing a mainstream hit that doesn't, at the same time, stray too far from its Gay origins.

It's clear just from looking around the audience for that evening's show that the Trocks have a wide audience appeal, reaching out to both Gay and Straight, lovers of dance and lovers of comedy.

'We don't think about things in terms of girl and boy roles,' Tory explains. 'They're just guys dancing roles that women would normally dance - and when I'm asked if it's a drag act, I always have to remember not to take offence.'

'Some of the dancers are not as masculine as others but they don't approach their roles as women but as who they are, as guys.'

'And the issue for us is always, everywhere we go, to try to do the best possible programme so the audience has a really enjoyable time.'

'We're not trying to create new work where the audience can't wait for it to be over - that's not what the Trocks are about!'

Watching the company both in class and then during a performance, however, it's very evident that there are some big personalities on stage.

Yet Tory insists that this is a tight-knit company where the diva-like behavior of the OTT creatures on stage could not be tolerated in the dressing room.

Weeding out the 'difficult' personalities begins at the earliest stages of the casting process.

'Most of our dancers contact us initially through the internet,' he says.

'I don't like auditions - you get a bunch of people standing there being nervous and nervousness is not fun.'

Instead, anybody interested comes along and takes company class and if they seem to get along with everybody and have the right personality, are team players, then they're in - there's no such thing as a problem personality in this company.

'You don't have to fit in but you do have to function as part of the group and if we allowed diva behaviour it would simply expand - so we don't allow it!'

'Everybody gets to do roles so you can be a Swan Queen one night and be back in the corps the next.'  

'The important thing is that if you like to dance and you like to travel this is an unbelievable job but I'm always telling dancers that if they're the type who likes to drink tea in their own kitchen then this is not the job for them.'

What started as a small American company is now a truly international concern, with dancers from Argentina, South Africa, Spain, France, Canada, Israel, Australia, Mexico and Italy added to the American mix.

The intimacy of the company remains unchanged, though, just a team of dancers living out of touring trunks, with Tory insisting that his company office is wherever he happens to be able to switch on his laptop.

With the Trocks proving more popular than ever before, however, there surely has to be some plan for the future?

'People ask me this question all the time and I make something up,' Tory admits.

'Really I just want the audience to continue to enjoy what we are doing and for the company to enjoy what we are doing.'

'Of course we have to change things so we don't become stale but I know how to stop that happening.'

'If we had tons of money I have a whole list of ballets I would love to be coming in but part of our charm and appeal is that we're supposed to be this dusty Russian touring company and if we try to upgrade too much I do believe a part of our charm will be dissipated.'

'So as long as the show is good and the dance is good and the comedy is real that's the direction I want to go in.'

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo appear at the Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield on April 5 and 6 in a Sheffield Theatres event in partnership with Danceworks UK and Dance Consortium.