You’ve never heard of Les Ballets Trockadero??

Les Ballets Trockadero (affectionately, ‘the Trocks’) is the ‘the World’s foremost all-male comic ballet company, and they’re playing at the Auditorium Theatre … wait, no … they played at the Aud on Saturday night, 2/11/23 – a one-night run But the Trocks are on tour through March 11, and it’s worth a trip to Asheville NC, or Tacomah WA, or New Haven CT to see them.

There are many remarkable things about the Trocks. Let’s start with their statement on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Access – a testimony you don’t see for every ballet company. The Statement is key to their artistic practice: “[The Trocks] are not just an exceptionally skilled ballet troupe; they are radicals and proud of it.”

If that sort of thing doesn’t ring your bells, let’s talk about the ‘exceptionally skilled’ bit. It’s amazing to see cis-male dancers rise on full pointe to pirouette, piqué tour, relevé, and some outstanding arabesques – Trocks can hold a balance forever.

The Trocks are (justly) renowned for their comic routines, but the success of these zany routines is inextricably bound to their technical genius. One comic routine is brief: a dancer ‘accidentally’ kicks one of the chorus in the head. Burlesque simply isn’t funny if the actors are inept, this hilarious stunt will look like a true casualty with a bungling dancer.

Sometimes the entire routine is comic, as when the two tallest ‘ballerinas’ are in pas de trois with a very short ‘danseur’. Their voluminous skirts overwhelm him, and the hapless danseur is often completely concealed by the ballerinas; he appears totally preposterous. But when each of the pas de trois performs a variation, the small, gawky danseur is revealed as totally phenomenal: I swear his grand jetes soared to nearly half his entire height! And when he circled the stage in a series of barrel turns and sky-high grand jetes it brought the audience to its feet.

Ah yes: the audience; an integral part of any performance, and one that the performers cannot control, except (hopefully!) by their performance. The Auditorium Theatre was packed with a wonderfully responsive audience, who laughed, applauded and cheered, and delivered a unanimous standing ovation at the final curtain. The Trocks graced us with a brief encore: a hora danced to Hava Nagila – traditionally a dance of joy.

It's tempting to dismiss the Trocks as a counter-culture oddity, a troupe of gay danseurs who have chosen a very in-your-face way to come out and declare themselves. To begin with, I don’t know if each of the Trocks is gay, bisexual, trans, or even Republican. The Trocks are a troupe of exceptionally talented dancers performing ballet impossible for a traditional company.

I often wished the Olympics would feature male/male figure skating teams. Wouldn’t it be glorious to see both skaters performing triple Lutz and quadruple Axel jumps? Even better would be to see both skaters jumping: quadruple Salchow. Best of all would be to see both skaters lifting and throwing each other.

The Trockaderos are a step ahead of the Olympics, performing some of the most difficult and spectacular moves in ballet without the gender restrictions that fetter traditional ballet. After all, I suspect most balletomanes are simply not ready to see Margot Fonteyn lifting Mikhail Barishnikov! 

Though here at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre for just a single performance, be on the lookout for their return.