LONDON, UK
Love them or hate them, The Trocks are not going to go away any time soon.
This gang of “Ballerinas” with Adam’s apples and unusually latge feet are in their prime and this latest show sees them refining still further their witty pastiche of the ballet, both classical and contemporary.
Programme 1 is a real revelation, containing old favourites like the Dying Swan solo which Paul Ghiselin (aka Ida Nevasayneva) has made his own. Shedding feathers like a snowstorm, this bony-legged, knock-kneed dancer is one of the highlights of any Trocks show.
But it is one of the smaller dishes in an incredibly varied menu.
Opening with ChopEniana a large work that shows off the skills of the company while allowing for very funny moments of miscues and internecine jealousies as members of the corps attempt to hog the limelight, it seems to set the tone for what is to follow.
But The Trocks are too clever to play it straight.
Unexpected delights lie in wait, like the Grand Pas Classique between Chase Johnsey (aka Yakaterina Verbosovich) and Claude Gamba (Dimitri Legupski), which is danced seriously and with enormous aplomb until one visual joke at the very end.
It is a masterclass in crossgender illusion and laughter dies in the throat as it is evident that these boys can not ony really dance, they can really dance like girls.
The most surprising segment arrives with their Merce Cunningham pastiche, Patterns in Space, which comes complete with a pair of black –clad “musicians” who make a succession of noises with kazoos, rattles, paper bags and castanets while the three leotarded dancers attempt to make sense of the sound in movement.
As a send-up of po-faced modernism it is mercilessly accurate and hysterically funny. If anything, The Trocks have become too good, or too subtle for a general audience. Much of the physical farce and pratfalls have been usurped by witty asides and marginalia while the main event is better and tighter than one might expect.
For the big laughs, one has to look at the facial expressions of Robert Carter (aka Olga Supphozova) who comes over like a cross between Carmen Miranda and Fernandel.
Praise, too, for the tiny Long Zou, whose technical prowess would win him a place in many prestigious companies of a less camp persuasion.
To paraphrase Kojak, “Who Loves Ya, Trockies?” Me, for one.
