The Trocks have history
Troupe’s artistic director talks about its connection to Yiddish theater — among other things
Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo — more commonly known as the Trocks — was founded in 1974, five years after Stonewall. It is what has come to be known as a gender-bending company. That is, all the roles are filled by men. Funny men, happily spoofing the very serious world of ballet.
How serious is that world?
Tory Dobrin joined the Trocks as a dancer in 1980 and performed until 1996. He’s been its artistic director since 1992. On a Zoom call, one of my first questions to him was about who was most resistant to the group early on, social conservatives or ballet purists.
“I can’t speak definitively about what happened in the 1970s,” Tory said. “Then, most of the performances were in New York City, so I imagine the general population would have enjoyed something like [the Trocks] and been very supportive.”
There was occasional pushback when the Trocks took their show on the road. “Some cities that we went to which would be considered a lot more conservative, a lot more religious oriented. You know, fundamentalists. They often made it clear they were not happy we were in their community. I’m thinking specifically of Medford, Ore., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
“Also, in the ’80s, when we went to Mexico City, we got some pushback from certain segments of society who thought what we were doing was against God’s nature or something. But there was never any danger,” he said. “It was just picketing.”
Given the times, those protests were not surprising. Nor was pushback from the ballet community, though some of that was surprising — and hurtful.
“Even into the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a lot of pushback from the ballet world for what we were doing, especially in America,” Tory said. “The interesting thing is that a lot of the ballet purists were gay men, and they were the ones who were very specifically not liking Trocadero.
“So, in the 1980s, when AIDS hit, we were hit terribly because you know everyone in the company, we were all gay. So the dance community started to raise money for AIDS, and we were never invited. We were never allowed to appear on stage. Some people said they would not perform at a benefit if we were performing. I could give names, but that would be tacky.”
When I suggested tacky is good, he said, “These are people you definitely know if you are familiar with the ballet world. Some of them are no longer with us because they died of AIDS.”
He quotes one prominent dance critic who supposedly said, “We were faggots making fools of ourselves in public.” He never saw the review, but “heard about it.”
But even the support of the gay and dance communities wouldn’t have made life easier back then. “At the time, we were a company of 11 dancers, and we needed 10 to do the show adequately. Often, we would have four people unable to perform and that made things very, very difficult.
“And emotionally it was super scary. You were worried for your friends, and you were worried for yourself. No one knew what was going on for many years, so it was awful in every sense of the word. It coincided with the National Endowment for the Arts brouhaha with Jesse Helms.”
That involved a conservative backlash about Robert Mapplethorpe photos in an NEA-sponsored exhibit in Cincinnati, led by Helms, a Republican senator from North Carolina, that sparked a debate about the use of public funds to promote so-called obscene works versus the right to free speech.
Ironically, it was an early NEA grant that provided funds for the Trocks’ first tours. “There was all kinds of pushback from the government,” Tory said. “It’s not like we got grants. We didn’t. But theaters would get grants from the National Endowment, and they would be afraid to book us for fear of losing their grant. It was an awful time.”
This was 1991, and the company’s director general at the time, Eugene McDougal, was “going to close us down because enough is enough. We didn’t have any bookings.”
Mr. Dobrin convinced him to first try to “reorganize a little bit, keep going and see what happens. He said okay. We made some adjustments to this or that, and slowly but surely we built up to where we are today.”
The turning point came in the mid-1990s, when the Trocks regularly performed in London and received “incredible reviews, fantastic reviews” from respected British dance critics.
Tory attributes this level of acceptance to England’s music hall tradition “and a big culture of drag. You know, even Dame Edna, even though she, he, was I think Australian. So we got a lot of good press there. We even won an award for best classical repertoire. We beat out the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet.
“I mean, can you imagine? A drag ballet in the 1990s getting awards like that? So it was really England that helped promote our visibility.”
The Trocks perform classical choreography. Tory said the group’s “Swan Lake” was in fact performed by the Royal Ballet in the 1950s. “The dancing part is very much the same, but it’s the characterization and things we turn around for comic effect that are different.”
Here’s the Jewish part.
Tory compares the Trocks to Yiddish Theater. “I’ve said that before. Not the entire Yiddish theater, of course. But a lot of Yiddish theater, and this is stereotyping, but you know, the big drama, the overreaction, the over-the-top drama, which is a hallmark of Jewish humor. The Trocadero has a lot of that.”
When I suggest you don’t even have to be a ballet aficionado to enjoy the Trocks, Tory said, “You hit the nail on the head. A woman who loves ballet can come and see us and enjoy it because there is some really good dancing. And she can bring her husband who hates ballet but likes comedy. They can bring their children because this is a wonderful introduction to ballet for kids.”
Tory grew up in the Fairfax section of Los Angeles, in a very secular Jewish household. His parents — Victor and Anais — were New Age hippies who ran a health food store for many years, before his father returned to the practice of law.
Tory got into dance quite accidentally, in what seemed almost a cosmic accident. “When I was a teenager, there was an earthquake in Los Angeles that caused the local high school, L.A. High, to be condemned. So all its students came over to Fairfax High School.
“In those days, the 1960s, because of John F. Kennedy’s emphasis on fitness, you had to take a physical activity. I was late to register, and the men’s PE class was full, so the male PE teacher — he probably knew I was a gay guy though I don’t know that for sure — he said, ‘Well, there’s no opening now, so why don’t you go over to take dance in the world gym department?’
“I went there, and the teacher was absolutely fantastic. She was a New York Jew and she gave these incredible, inspiring classes, and she sent me to the University of Judaism,” a school now called American Jewish University.
“They had a really good department of dance, taught by a well-known Israeli dance artist. So I studied there throughout my high school years, but with no intention of becoming a dancer.”
Despite growing up in an environment that was almost exclusively Jewish, Toby said, “I can’t say I had any Jewish identity to speak of, until I went away to school.”
That was the American College in Paris, a school populated mostly by the children of diplomats and expat business executives. That’s “the first time I came across any anti-Semitism. I’d never experienced it before, and that’s kind of how my Jewish identity started, listening to some of the crap that came out of some of the students’ mouths.”
He doesn’t know how to quantify that. “I am who I am, and I feel connected to Jewish cultural things,” he said. “There’s a type of energy Jews have, quick-witted, self-deprecating sense of humor, laughing a lot.”
He returned home after his first year determined to dance.
And that he has done. He’s been with the Trocks for 44 years.
I asked what the significant changes he’s lived through have been.
“I didn’t anticipate ever having gay marriage or gay adoption or things like that,” he said. “It just didn’t occur to me at all. What I will say about Trocadero is that in the 1980s there were no children in the audience, like zero. Now there are lots and lots of children. So to me that is a really good symbol of how society has changed.”
Les Ballet Trocadero of Paris will appear at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan from December 17 to January 5, with a special 50th anniversary performance set for December 18.
For tickets, go to www.joyce.org and follow the links.
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