The Trocks

Click on the above to enlarge, and see what Brenda describes as some of the ugliest girls to ever put on a tutu.

Brenda has a subscription to the ballet. Specifically the National Arts Centre series of advanced booked shows which generally consist of ballets, though they DID include the Japanese "Kodo Drummers" and "Shakespeare's Dog". But without much complaint on my part, I accompany her and Elizabeth to various entertainments. I tend to avoid the highbrow entertainments, but I DO have to admit that a group of individuals working at entertaining me is usually better than shivering my ass off in the stands watching a group of bored overpaid individuals shoving a puck around on the ice. Sometimes. And don't forget I grew up in a family of dancers....albeit Ukrainian Cossack Dancers. So I can appreciate dance...no matter WHAT Brenda says. (I think she is right that I have little to no interest in a true "classical" ballet though. Why she doesn't want to come with me to watch the pole dancers in the club up the road and see some "good" dancing is just as inexplicable, but I digress.)

This time it was the Company of Trocaderos della Monte Carlo. I remember them playing along side Kermit and Miss Piggy as they performed "Swine Lake". The humour has only got raunchier and eathier since that memorable gig. The Trocks are an all male dance troupe who, in fine medieval tradition, play both the male and female roles during their performances. Of course, they pick performances which are really heavy weighted to traditional female roles...such as "Swan Lake", their signature piece, the "dying swan" and an abstract dance piece specfically choreographed for four divas of dance back in the 19th century. So the costumes are outrageously female...pink tutus and pointe shoes. So it was a choice between staying at home playing video games, going out and killing myself on the snowboard slopes, or watching a group of grown men prancing around in tutus and wigs. Since a train wreck was not one of the choices, I stayed to watch the Trocks.

http://www.trockadero.org/

From the Wikipedia....

The dancers portray both male and female (mainly female) roles in a humorous style that mixes send-ups of the clichés of ballet, posing, and physical comedy with "straighter" pieces intended to show off the performers' skill (but still with a certain amount of humour). Part of the comedy is seeing male dancers en travesti performing moves usually reserved to females, such as dancing en pointe.

Part of the humour is the phoney biographies of the actors. A couple are re-printed here, again, from the Wikipedia. They make amusing reading in the interval as you seat yourself and await the start of the show.

-----from the Wikipedia.
Robert Carter
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA; he joined the Trocks in November 1995. He portrays Yuri Smirnov and Olga Supphozova.
Yuri ran away from home and joined the Kirov Opera because he thought Borodin was a prescription barbiturate, but he soon discovered that he didn't know his arias from his elbow and decided to become a ballet star instead. Olga made her first public appearance in a KGB lineup under dubious circumstances and after a seven-year-to-life hiatus, she now returns to her adoring fans.
Edgar Cortes
Born in Santiago do Cacem, Portugal; he joined the Trocks in October 2000. He portrays Klaus Youssoupovtu and Maria Gertrudes Clubfoot.
Klaus soared into prominence as the first defector whose leave-taking was accomplished at the virtual insistence of the defectees. Maria (after ballerina Maria Tallchief) is the last one of the great Indian ballerinas, who began her training with the Wounded Knee Ballet but was subsequently banned for use of traditional Indian weaponry.

Here is a good site you might like to check out...it has clips of the actors.

Otherwise, I would say, "Get off the computer and get shoveling that snow!"

http://www.trockstour.co.uk/ (Brenda says this site shows some really ugly women!) Me, I just want to know how they did that web site because it is the best example of scripting I have ever seen!