by Leigh Witchel
Program B for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo was another serving of ham and eggs – all classics. The Trocks’ greatest inspiration comes from the Ballet Russes period, which may be the company’s long-term greatest challenge. New ballets, even new companies, don’t provide many new jokes for the Trocks, as if the ballets that can be parodied ended with “Dances at a Gathering.”
“ChopEniana,” the Trocks’ parody of “Les Sylphides,” is a quintessential ham and eggs ballet. It was for the Ballet Russes as well, people mention different triple bills as “ham and eggs,” but it seemed all of them contained “Les Sylphides.” And like “Swan Lake,” The Trocks know it well enough to poke fun at it on many levels. “Les Sylphides” pushes buttons both about ballet and gender; last year Christopher Williams staged a thought-provoking all-male version headlined by Taylor Stanley.
This staging was credited to Alexander Minz, who set it on the Trocks in 1976, so it’s surely seen other hands since then. The main jokes were about breaking character or conventions and artificiality. There were so many eyelashes in this staging, fluttering and blinking like windshield wipers. There was also the stereotype of the ballerina as attention whore, or the cavalier so romantic he was narcoleptic, sleepwalking through the “romantic reverie.”
With her long attenuated face, Elvira Khababgallina (Kevin Garcia) recalled Wendy Whelan. She nearly kicked Nicholas Khachafallenjar (Haojun Xie) as he ignored her. And during the Prelude, where the ballerina poses as if listening to the sounds of the woods, oy, did she listen, as the corps slowly collapsed into splits.
Nina Enimenimynimova (Long Zou) danced the Waltz walking the line between the steps and the jokes, but also pushed hard into an en dedans turn clenching her fists. Varvara Laptopova (Takaomi Yoshino) went further in the Mazurka, doing double attitude turns to a double tour, which encapsulated most of the latent questions in every performance of the Trocks: is it about comedy? Is it about gender? Or is it about dancing?
Olga Supphozova (Robert Carter) danced the Russian dance from “Swan Lake,” as staged by Elena Kunikova. The dance is more character work than technical, mostly walking about in mazurka steps on tippy-toe, but it suits her manic energy. There were so many head poses, but one joke throughout – a hanky with a mind of its own. Sometimes one joke is all that’s needed.
Helen Highwaters (Duane Gosa) did “The Dying Swan.” Highwaters is elegant without seeming out of place amidst the laughs: Imagine Dionne Warwick as a Trock. Highwaters’ version was more linear and glamorous than the usual, moving from graceful poses to epileptic spasms. Well, she’s dying, right?
The evening closed with “Paquita” led by Laptopova and Jacques d’Aniels (Joshua Thake). Laptopova again inserted double tours into her variations. She was a taskmistress, making her oafish cavalier do push ups.
“Paquita,” also staged by Kunikova, featured a series of variations that, like many Russian divertissements that have come down to us, were interchangeable. One ballerina danced the Queen of the Dryads variation from “Don Quixote” (which is also Gamzatti’s variation in “La Bayadère”), another did Amor’s variation.
Enimenimynimova danced the Queen of the Dryads, and has uncanny legs and feet. But she also finished with a double tour. You had to admire Laptopova’s strength and brute force as she moosed her way through her variation. She did strong, centripetal turns with a decent line, and impressive double fouettés, then continued her fouettés changing spots and, unlike so many ballerinas, she made her finish.
But she also put switch leaps and double saut de basques into the coda. At the end of another section she did double tours and a walkover. It was coarse rather than pretty, and didn’t feel like a commentary on masculine or feminine gender roles. It felt confused, ambitious and a little bit greedy.
It’s a fine line between examining gender conventions in ballet and trying to usurp them. On a broad level, busting out into double tours when you’re wearing a tutu is slapstick. On a more subtle level, flexing your masculinity when impersonating a woman could be read as ungenerous; wanting to have your cake and eat it too. It’s not about getting to do the ballerina’s parts. It’s about using gender to send up the conventions and convoluted logic of ballet.
copyright © 2023 by Leigh Witchel
“ChopEniana,” “Russian Dance from Swan Lake,” “The Dying Swan,” “Paquita”– Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
The Joyce Theater, New York, NY
December 28, 2022
Cover: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo in “Les Sylphides.” Photo credit © Zoran Jelenic.
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