Those Wacky Trocks: Fun Comes From Respect for the Dance

For a short time last year, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, the New York-based troupe of boys in tutus and cascading feathers, tried bringing a Spanish flavor to its startling parodies of classical and modern dance.

Natch Taylor, the founding member of the 15-year-old company (which performs at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center tonight), always had admired the verve of flamenco, and felt it would be a great target for satire. After all, overwrought flamenco has been known to staccato-step right into melodrama and, Taylor reasoned, therefore could provide mucho opportunity for typical Trock travesty.

So the guys put on the tight black pants, paid the guitarist and slicked back their hair. But it didn’t work.

“The biggest problem was simply that flamenco isn’t something any of us really knew much about,” Taylor explained, on the phone from his home in Brooklyn. “We just didn’t have the necessary grounding, the scholarly and practical knowledge of the dance, to give it the right treatment.

“With us, you have to know it so well before you can have fun with it.”

That kind of insight, and basic respect for dance, has been a large part of the Trocks’ success. Instead of being dismissed by critics as a harmless novelty, sort of a Mad magazine in toe shoes, the troupe has been praised for knowing so much about the history and technique of the very forms they tease.

“Any man can put on a tutu and stomp around, but that doesn’t make it funny,” Taylor said. “What seems to work is starting from traditional choreography and then finding out what’s funny about it, like making the ballerinas in ‘Swan Lake’ nastier and more vicious than you could imagine. You can’t really do that well unless you have training.

“The result is that audiences laugh and critics have been kind to us . . . well, most critics. (New York critic) Clive Barnes hates us, always has, but we know we can’t please everybody, especially those who take dance so seriously. Many of them come in hating us. (But we) can’t give up on our point-of-view.”

Taylor hasn’t given up on the flamenco idea, either. The potential is still there, so he’s currently reading up on it, studying videotapes and discussing the form with anybody who knows anything, especially members of Spanish dance troupes. “There’s plenty of meat there, once we get it all figured out.”

What Taylor and other early Trocks figured out in the early ‘70s was that the icons of dance--from George Balanchine to Maurice Petipa to Martha Graham to Isadora Duncan, among others--could stand a little kick in the pants from the on point position.

So the muscled male dancers donned the ballerina’s best and adopted alter-egos like Natasha Notgoudenoff, Konstantina Kvetchskaya, Nina Enimenimynimova and Margaret Lowin-Octeyn. Some men got to remain men, like the Legupski Brothers and Lavrenti (Biff) Stroganoff.

Among the Trocks’ successes have been “Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet” and “Go for Barocco.” Pieces scheduled for the Bren include “In Kazmidity,” described as being about “unfulfilled ballerinas in a feminist kingdom,” “Isadora Deconstructed” and “I Wanted to Dance With You at the Cafe of Experience.”

In some ways, Taylor thinks it’s remarkable the troupe has lasted for 15 years. He and the other members put a lot of time in keeping the programs “fresh and interesting,” but certain elements have conspired against the Trocks’ longevity.

For one, turnover in membership can disturb continuity, and Taylor said that most Trocks have lasted only about 2 years before jumping to more traditional dance companies, jobs on Broadway or elsewhere, or just leaving the field altogether.

A big factor is the group’s rough touring schedule--as many as 40 weeks a year, including rapid-fire rounds in Europe and Japan (where, Taylor said, the Trocks have their most passionate fans).

“A lot of the time (dancers) leave because they need to grow into something else, but I also know the touring really wears on you,” Taylor said. “It can just wreak havoc. Personally, I love it, I was meant to live out of a suitcase, but others want a home life and kids, something more secure.”

AIDS also has affected the company. Taylor said that over the past several years, “eight to 10” dancers have been lost to the disease.

“Every month you read about someone who you know or worked with who has died of AIDS. It’s a petrifying reality.”

But Taylor said the troupe has no plans to slow down. The company’s fans--pretty much an even mix of knowledgeable dance enthusiasts and “the friendly jock with his girlfriend” who happen to like broad humor--don’t seem to be diminishing.

Besides, Taylor said he’s still having fun. “I’ve done about 700 performances of ‘Swan Lake’ myself and it never gets boring. It’s better than punching a clock every day, or joining the Army to see the world.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo perform tonight at 8 p.m. at the Bren Events Center, UC Irvine. Tickets: $13 and $15. Information: (714) 856-5000.