ShowOne Productions: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo — 50th Anniversary Tour, Wintergarden Theatre, Oct. 18 and 19, 2025.
When I first saw Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in the 1990s at the old Premiere Dance Theatre, it was dance comedy.
They had taken well known ballet showpieces and turned them on their ear with clever parody. There was enough of the original choreography intact that anyone who knew the canon could recognize what was being spoofed, and the wit was always delivered with style.
Fast forward 50 years.
The company is now touring in its 50th-anniversary celebration, and a major evolution has occurred.
Les Ballet Trockadero is no longer just a comedy troupe of men on pointe with hairy chests and underarm hair poking through the tutus.
It is a legitimate ballet company.
What has added to the comedy is virtuosity and technique — and frankly, the dancers are dazzling. Not only that, but they are also showing their chops as danseurs nobles.
The Anniversary Program
The current program is generous: two complete acts book-ending the evening, with shorter pieces in between.
We began with Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake Act II), then moved through Le Corsaire pas de deux, the contemporary Metal Garden choreographed by Seán Curran, and The Dying Swan solo, and ended with Paquita Grand Pas Classique.
Overall, the evening demonstrated just how far the company has come — from clever spoof to genuine ballet virtuosity.
Swan Lake
The opening Swan Lake Act II is still the most comic piece on the program, and yes, there’s even a gloomy backdrop with a dark castle on a dark lake, perspective askew of course.
It’s a treasure chest of sight gags and slapstick timing, such as a ballet swan getting slammed in the face or another falling on her keester.
Then there’s Benno, played by Jacques d’Aniels (Antonio Lopez), the Prince’s nerdy friend always causing havoc, or Prince Siegfried himself, performed by an uber dignified Araf Ligupski (Andrea Fabbri) striding on to begin his variation while the music never starts — the variation that never happens; or Von Rothbart, the elder statesman Yuri Smirnov (Robert Carter) huffing and puffing himself into exhaustion.
There are the drops and the near misses and a swan doing the “Dance of the Little Swans” backwards.
But beneath the antics lurks a great deal of the Petipa-Ivanov choreography, performed with real virtuosity by Colette Adae as Odette (Jake Speakman) and her partner Ligupski.
Even here, in this early piece filled with comic antics that entered the repertoire in 1975, you can see the technical ambition that would define the Trocks’ future.
The Shorter Works
Le Corsaire pas de deux
In Le Corsaire pas de deux, which the Trocks started dancing in 2010, Mikhail Mudkin (Raydel Caceres) and Maya Thikenthighya (Peter Gwiazda) delivered an exciting, rendition of this gala-favorite showpiece. It wasn’t perfect, but it is also extremely challenging.
Of course there was that dash of self-aware humour, but the technique had teeth.
Mudkin thrilled the crowd with tours on l’air, saut de basques and jetés entrelacé, while his formidable partner tossed off piqué tours en manège, fouettés en tourant and pirouettes en dehors/en dedans.
And let us not forget the spectacular lifts with Mudkin hoisting Thickenthighya head level in the air!
Metal Garden
Noted American choreographer Seán Curran set Metal Garden on his own company in 2001 and it was taken into the Trocadero repertoire in 2005.
The contemporary work is a droll diversion for three men: Vyacheslau Legupski (Vincent Brewer), William Vanilla (Liam Hutt) and Nicholas Khachafallenjar (A.J. David), and three women: Gerd Törd (Matias Dominguez Escrig), Marina Plezegtovstageskaya (Antonio Lopez) and Anya Marx (Shohei Iwahama).
The women were wearing skirts of varying lengths and the men are in pants. All sported quite ridiculous wigs.
Set to a gong-based percussion and prepared piano score by Tigger Benford and Peter T. Jones, the initial amusing choreography captured the bouncy quality of the music in rhythmic walking before breaking out into creating complex patterns with the dancers’ bodies.
The second section is absolutely hilarious.
It was all about circular motion — partners curling and threading through each other’s limbs, constantly creating holes to climb or crawl through, while a tutu-clad ballerina wandered on with a shovel and watering can.
Metal Garden is funny, but also smart — proof that the company can handle contemporary movement with precision.
The Dying Swan
The Dying Swan entered the repertoire in 1976 and remains the Trocks’ oldest signature solo.
Here it was performed by Olga Supphozova (Robert Carter), one of the company’s senior members. The comic touches were all there — the fluttering arms, the melodramatic death — but after the virtuosity of Le Corsaire, it felt a little dated, although the solo was certainly milked to death for all the laughs that it could get.
In Carter’s male avatar, Yuri Smirnov, he made a fine Von Rothbart, but alas, his Supphozova was also part of the Paquita corps de ballet, and frankly, couldn’t keep up with the younger dancers. Perhaps it’s time for her to take her well-deserved final bow and acknowledge that her best years are over.
Paquita
Then came the pièce de résistance: Paquita Grand Pas Classique. The purple Bolshoi-style curtain hung over a radiant corps of ten ballerinas moving with admirable ensemble clarity.
Comic moments still surfaced — prima ballerina Varvara Laptopova (Takaomi Yoshino) making a premature entrance, one ballerina taking a comic spill, another corps member realizing she was facing the wrong way — but this was above all a display of classical technique and virtuosity.
A central pas de deux with Laptopova and Mudkin, and seven distinct solo showpieces, demonstrated mastery of Petipa Russian imperial technique and the Trocks’ own bravura.
The cobbled-together music from Pugni, Drigo, Adam and who knows who else, only added to the fun — but each variation was delivered with conviction, from dainty to dramatic, coy to commanding, sweet to sweeping, these immensely gifted ballerinas brought the audience to their feet.
Along with the gorgeous and lyrical Laptopova, the other showy variations, each one vastly different from the other, were performed by Tatiana Youbetyabootskya (Andrea Fabbri), Moussia Shebarkarova (Vincent Brewer), Minnie van Driver (Liam Hutt), Anya Marx (Shohei Iwahama), Gerd Törd (Matias Dominguez) and Colette Adae (Jake Speakman).
This performance of Paquita could happily grace any ballet company, that is how good it was.
The Curtain Call
Just when one thought the concert was over, and the troupe was taking their final bow, the dancers joined hands, the music came on and they performed as fine a version of Riverdance as one could imagine, toe shoes and all.
Needless to say, the crowd went wild
Final Thoughts
In the end, comparing Paquita and Le Corsaire to Swan Lake Act II and The Dying Swan is almost impossible — they belong to different eras of the Trocks’ identity.
Whether the company’s fans will embrace this new balance of virtuosity and comedy remains to be seen, but for me, the Trocks have grown from a sketch-comedy concept into a serious, credible ballet company.
I came originally to laugh. Now I leave cheering.
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