The Trocks Toe the Line Between Art and Camp : Dance: The all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo parodies the classics with technical and dramatic skill.

At the very least, a performance of “Swan Lake” by men with hairy armpits, dressed in pink tights, tutus and tiaras, is always good for a few laughs.

But it’s taken more than that to keep Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a troupe of muscular, false-eyelashed female impersonators who dance on pointe, drawing audiences for 21 years.

“What we’ve found to be most successful,” general manager Eugene McDougle said recently, “is that the choreography itself must be humorous.” In “Swan Lake,” for instance, the corps de ballet hops on stage, one leg lifted in arabesque, as per Petipa. But when the troops reach center stage, “they start dog-paddling.”

The Trocks paddle into Fullerton’s Plummer Auditorium tonight with their signature mix of parodied, big-name works. Along with “Swan Lake,” they’ll skewer the “Don Quixote Pas de Deux,” “The Dying Swan,” “Go for Barocco,” loosely based on Balanchine’s “Concerto Barocco,” and the splashy “Raymonda’s Wedding,” from Act III of “Raymonda,” which the troupe hasn’t danced for about a decade. The presentation is sponsored by Cal State Fullerton’s Professional Artists in Residence Celebrity Series.

Just as guys in drag and funny moves aren’t enough, the New York troupe’s technical and dramatic competence have been key to its longevity, McDougle said in a phone interview from the company’s office.

For an effective Dying Swan, for instance, primo ballerino Gary David Shaw “has to be able to do the steps and stay on pointe continuously for about two minutes,” he said. “At the same time, he has to create the character of a pathetic swan so that there is a certain reality and believability to the performance.”

Additionally, guys doing guy parts have to be able to twirl and hoist guys doing gal parts, McDougle said.

“We are doing the classical ballets as any other company would do them, so if that requires partnering and lifts, they do it.”

One post-performance conversation between audience members he overheard long ago seemed to indicate that technically, at least, the Trocks were on track, said McDougle, who has been with the 15-member company since its 1974 inception.

“One day, two well-dressed elderly ladies were walking out (of the theater) and I overheard one say, ‘Well, they weren’t bad dancers, but those were the ugliest girls I’ve ever seen.’ ”

It was during the early ‘70s dance boom that Ballet Trockadero was founded by three former ballet dancers, Natch Taylor (now retired), Peter Anastos (artistic director of the Cincinnati Ballet) and Antony Bassae (who died of AIDS).

“They just thought it would be a hoot to satirize the classics,” said McDougle, who holds a theater arts bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. “They thought it was about time some of this terribly serious stuff be taken with a little more humor.”

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Many of the company’s works were staged by former artistic director Betteane Terrell, including “Raymonda’s Wedding,” a plotless showpiece consisting of a grand pas de deux and several classical variations. (The troupe currently has no artistic director; associate director Tory Dobrin is filling the role temporarily.) Princess Raymonda will be danced by Joey Nevins, who takes the stage name Elena Kumonova, and Shaw, a.k.a. Randon Foch, will appear as the Prince.

It usually takes new members (see related story) about a year to learn to dance on pointe, McDougle said. It may take longer to master the more subtle art of broad comedy.

“The ballet master sits in the audience watching every performance and trying to keep control,” he said. “Afterward he may say to a dancer, ‘No, you went too far that time,’ or ‘You can’t mug too much.’ If a sense of spontaneity is gone, it can just fall dead.”

As the nation’s audience for dance has diminished since the ‘70s, so has the number of Ballet Trockadero’s engagements, McDougle said. Its ace in the hole, however, is Japan, where theatergoers can’t seem to get enough. The company recently signed a four-year contract to perform 45 shows a year (half its season) in about 30 cities around the country.

“The Japanese are infatuated with anything Western--European or American,” McDougle explained, adding that the troupe “fits right in” with such traditional Japanese theater forms as Kabuki, in which male and female roles are played exclusively by men.

“They take the guys as serious artists,” McDougle said, “and we have a fan club with over 1,000 members. There’s always people waiting at the stage door after every performance to give the dancers flowers and gifts.”

* Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo performs tonight at Plummer Auditorium, 201 E. Chapman Ave., Fullerton. 8 p.m. $15 to $20. (714) 773-3371.