Trockadero Has the Moves, but Not All Jokes Fly

Nobody says “roll over Tchaikovsky” quite so well as Les Ballets Trockadero, the men in tutus who continue to do for ballet what Dana Carvey did for George Bush: lampoon familiar manners and pretensions. But when it comes to telling John Cage and Merce Cunningham to roll over, the task seems more daunting.

The Trocks’ program Saturday night at El Camino College in Torrance--part of the group’s 25th anniversary year--featured its venerable “Swan Lake,” always welcome for its atypical fowl. Tchaikovsky’s stirring score never seems more suspenseful than when one swan goes down during a tricky corps de ballet stage crossing--just one of many comic bits, mixed in with moments of technical brilliance.

In the “Diana and Actaeon” pas de deux, for instance, Nicholas Khachafallenjar (Jai Williams) had the airy grace of the exotically flexible Kirov star Farouk Ruzimatov. And in “Stars and Stripes Forever,” a paean to Balanchine, Olga Supphozova (Robert Carter) and Svetlana Lofatkina (Fernando Medina) whipped off impressive double fouette turns. For this piece, choreographer Robert La Fosse’s Balanchine-like showgirl poses and perky salutes--already campy in the original--took on new levels of silly when done by men. “Esmeralda” sparkled from start to finish, largely due to the mooning of the elegantly melodramatic Maya Thickenthighya (Mark Rudzitis) and a no-neck Gomer in the corps.

The announced surprise was supposed to be the way the Trocks approached a short Merce Cunningham piece, “Cross Currents,” performed to a Cage-like score by Andrew Franck. According to press material, it would not be danced for laughs and would signal a “change in concept” for the satirical troupe. It was a plausible notion since, unlike ballet, Cunningham works tend to de-emphasize gender differences, so men in women’s roles might go relatively unnoticed.

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But the Trocks, it turns out, do not easily give up emphasizing gender differences. The two men playing roles originally danced by women were wearing exaggeratedly feminine makeup and haughty ballerina expressions. This, along with audience expectations, one assumes, resulted in hoots of laughter at usually unfunny Cunningham hallmarks--non sequitur gestures or robotic pivots and pathways. In this context, two onstage musicians making minimalist sound effects to the taped score--scissors chopping, water shaking in a bottle--were also considered hilarious. Especially when a dancer turned to shush the noise--was this just not very keen satire?

The Trocks are so good at affectionately poking fun at ballet’s preening divas, but seem unable to satirize the avant-garde (it has pretensions too; why try dancing it straight?). Evidently when gender gets less important in dance, Les Ballets Trockadero gets a little confused.