PARODY BALLET TROUPE HUNTING FOR ‘NEW STUFF’

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo--the all-male parody ballet troupe--has long been winning over audiences and critics for affectionate but deadly accurate potshots at such dance icons as Maurice Petipa, George Balanchine, Michael Fokine and Martha Graham, among others.

But after 13 years of such fun, the troupe’s sole remaining founding member thinks the repertory may be wearing thin.

“We need some new stuff,” Natch Taylor said in a recent phone interview from New York. “We have been doing ‘The Lamentations of Jane Eyre’ (a Graham parody) for seven years; it’s time to be put on the shelf.”

The troupe’s parodies of Act II of “Swan Lake” and “The Dying Swan” go back even further.

(Both these works will be seen when the 11-member company performs tonight at 8 at Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton under the auspices of Cal State Fullerton.)

Taylor, who dances under the name Alexis Ivanovitch Lermontov, would like to give choreographer Anthony Tudor the the Trocks treatment.

The problem, he said, is that films of Tudor’s works--the lifeblood of Taylor’s inspiration--are under restricted viewing at the Library and Museum of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in New York.

“You have to get (Tudor’s) permission to view the films,” Taylor said. “I haven’t got up the nerve to ask him. I don’t know how well he’d take to it.” (A spokesman at the library confirmed that approval must be given by the owner of a particular production; in some cases it is Tudor himself, but for certain works permission must come from American Ballet Theatre, the Juilliard School in New York or others.)

Taylor also thinks that it’s time to do a parody on what he calls “the ‘60s-’70s Soho, roll-around-the-garbage-bags” post-modern dance choreographers.

But he has worries whether “something so esoteric (is) going to go over in Fargo (N.D.). That’s something that has to be taken into consideration,” he said.

Taylor counts only himself and artistic co-director Betteanne Terrel among the company’s current choreographers. “We don’t have any other outside prospects,” he said.

“Our problems are money and time. We never are on a secure financial footing. But we’re still the only dance company that exists solely by our fees. We have never gotten grants.”

Taylor is still surprised that the company has been able to survive for 13 years under these conditions.

“When we started (in 1974), we were just doing it for fun. We didn’t have plans to be around this long. But we wouldn’t have lasted if we were (only) fraternity boys in tutus and toe shoes.”

As the only active member of the original company, Taylor has seen many Trocks come and go. Most of the other dancers who left did so to make career changes or because they grew tired of touring, Taylor said.

“Sometimes they get too big for their tutus, and I don’t invite them back. But that doesn’t happen too often,” he added.

But two key members of the group--William Zamora and Sanson Candelaria--died last year of AIDS.

“It’s a shock at first,” Taylor said. “It shakes us all up, especially those who worked with them, and it’s a loss to the company.

“But so many people in the dance world are dying (of AIDS) these days. It’s horrible, but at the same time it’s like nothing new.”

Injuries have been minor, but the male company members still have problems dancing on point.

Taylor, who usually dances the princely cavalier in “Swan Lake,” recently again began doing travesty roles in works such as “Pas de Quatre.”

“My feet were not in shape,” he said. “So I’m in the process of losing two toenails. But they’ll grow back.”

New members are drawn to the company because it offers steady work and a national touring schedule, Taylor said.

“Also, for many people, it’s an interesting curiosity to see what it’s like to do leading ballerina roles and what it’s like to dance on point,” he said. “And some people just need a job.”

Taylor insisted that the company has won its audience without stooping to coarse or broad satire.

“We have to make the audience come up to our level because it keeps up the quality of what we’re doing and it would be a disservice to the dance public to do otherwise.

“We still get the savvy dance crowd. But we also are getting a lot more of middle America--not necessarily real dance fans, but people who have heard about us, heard it’s a good show.”

Although Taylor has done “maybe 600 performances of ‘Swan Lake,’ ” he finds each performance new.

“It sounds kind of trite to say it,” he said, “but every night is different. One night you really feel like dancing up a storm, another you really hurt. Each one is a new situation, a new problem. I still like doing them all.”

And he has no thoughts of retiring:

“With this company, I can always put the queen mother in the second act (of ‘Swan Lake’) and do character roles. I’m 38. But they’re going to have to pull me off the stage. “