In 1974, a group of five male dancers, dressed as ballerinas, put on a show in a loft in New York City’s Greenwich Village. They wore tutus and did releves en pointe. The men had more comedic ability than dance talent, but they were all students and lovers of dance. They called themselves Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, and the critics saw that they weren’t just another drag show. The Trocks, as they came to be known, were as serious about ballet as they were hilarious in their theatricality.

In the last 30 years, the company has become an international success and a favorite among dance and nondance theatergoers. As professionals, the dancer-comedians have come a long way from being the “ballet enthusiasts” they once were.

“That’s a nice way of saying that they weren’t very good dancers,” said Tory Dobrin, the Trocks’ artistic director since 1978. “Now we have good dancers, and society has changed a lot. It wasn’t considered a career choice in the 1970s. Now it is. We have good dancers and good theater skills all in the same person.”

Reviews are almost entirely positive, if not raving. The Trocks, now a troupe of nearly 20 professional dancers, are on tour most of the year, with a cultlike following in Japan, where the group has made 19 annual visits. The company will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, at the Maine Center for the Arts in Orono. The company last performed in 1995 to a near-full MCA.

Dobrin, who began dancing during high school years in his native California, looks for dancers with a good sense of humor, excellent ballet technique and an ability to be a team player. “We don’t want attitude offstage,” he said. “We want it onstage.”

Unlike traditional ballet troupes in which the dancers conform to a standardized body type, the Trocks vary in size and shape, age and agility. They range from 5 feet 4 inches to 6 feet 2 inches tall, from age 21 to 44, from 5 to 12 in shoe size.

Audiences are equally diverse. The company is as appropriate for children as for hard-core ballet aficionados.

“We have kids, families, straight couples, gay couples,” said 30-year-old Tibor Horvath, who joined the company seven months ago after dancing with the English National Ballet, Lido de Paris and the Finnish National Ballet. “Everybody enjoys it, and during the whole show, they are laughing.”

As with each member of the corps, Horvath was assigned a parodying Russian nom de tutu when he joined the company. When he dances in toe shoes, the Swedish-born dancer is billed as Tatiana Youbetyabootskaya, a grand dame in the “loftiest choreographic circles.”

Dancing en pointe, said Horvath, is particularly difficult for male dancers because, unlike female dancers, they don’t receive training in the technique in traditional ballet school.

“I definitely know how women feel now,” said Horvath, who is 6 feet tall, 6 feet 3 in pointe shoes. “I know about the blisters and the sore feet.”

But there’s gain in the pain, said Horvath, who wasn’t even born when the company was founded. Still, he is aware of the social and political changes that have made it possible to have a career in an all-male, female-impersonating, high-quality ballet company. Indeed, the Trocks, with all its friendliness and professionalism, may have contributed to a society that is more open to supporting a gay company.

“We’re all doing girl parts and most of the people in the company are gay,” said Horvath. “But the performances onstage are of such a high quality that when people leave the show they see it was fun. I think that makes people more open-minded. We are really talented – all of us. And I think that helps people change their minds.”

– Alicia Anstead

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo will perform 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, at the Maine Center for the Arts. For tickets, call 581-1755 or (800) MCA-TIXX, or visit www. MaineCenterfortheArts.org. Alicia Anstead can be reached at 990-8266 and aanstead@bangor

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