Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo Debut at the West Side Discussion Group Center

History

The all-male Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, fondly known as the “Trocks,” is one of the most popular dance troupes in the world. It had its origins in the early gay rights movement in New York City in the 1970s.

Charles Ludlam had formed his innovative, influential, and gender-bending Ridiculous Theatrical Company downtown in 1967. Three of Ludlam’s actors – Larry Ree, Richard Goldberger, and Lohr Wilson – formed their own “ballet” group, called the Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company, in 1972. Under the direction of Ree, they were joined by William (Zamie) Zamora, Peter Anastos, Natch Taylor, and Anthony Bassae. The first company of male dancers en pointe, it was as comic and subversive as Ludlam’s creative, gay sensibility by taking on the ballet world with performers in drag. Ree appeared as the prima ballerina Ekathrina Sobechenskaya, and many of the group’s performances were held at the La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in the East Village.

Anastos, Taylor, Bassae, and Zamora, frustrated by Ree’s direction and wanting to perform actual, real ballet choreography, decided in 1974 to break off and form a different company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Searching for a space to perform, at a time when downtown spaces were limited, they connected with the West Side Discussion Group Center, at 37 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District. The troupe’s debut performance in the second floor loft space was on September 6, 1974. Eugene McDougle, the Center’s coordinator, remembered that “it was a total sell-out! There were about a hundred folding chairs, with lots of people standing on the sides, and in the aisles.” The cast of ten men, only two of whom were trained in classical ballet, just had its first “season” in this location, with six performances on only two weekends. McDougle, who loved that first performance, went on to become the group’s longtime general director.

A favorable review soon after in The New Yorker on October 14 immediately defined the Trocks as not merely a late-night drag act, but as a theatrical company to be regarded more seriously. Arlene Croce, one of New York’s most important dance critics, wrote in her article “The Two Trockaderos” that while she considered the Gloxinia company more as drag queens “noodling around on pointe,” the Trocks were “the creation of ballet fanatics” and were “dead on target and hilarious.” Their unique presentation was to simultaneously honor classical ballet while parodying its pretensions and rigid gender conventions, particularly what men could do in dance.

By the 1975-76 season, the company became fully professional, with performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and tours of the U.S. and Canada. Despite fears of how they would be received outside of New York, they turned out to be very popular wherever they performed, and in the process helped to change perceptions of gay men in America. While for the first two years women were also included in the company, the troupe then became solely gay men, all trained ballet dancers. The Trocks’ choreography also came to showcase the dancers’ expertise, as well as their comedic skills.

Tony Bassae was the star performer as Tamara Karpova, “the black rhinestone of the Russian ballet,” and also served as choreographer, costume designer, and co-artistic director. He left the company in 1976, to form his own company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Karpova. Peter Anastos was then elevated as the Trocks’ star ballerina Olga Tchikaboumskaya, and was also choreographer, and co-artistic director with Natch Taylor until 1978. Betteann Terrell joined the company in 1976 as a ballet mistress and became associate artistic director.

The Trocks made its television debut in 1976, played a run on Broadway at the Palace Theater in 1977, and increasingly toured around the world. The AIDS epidemic, however, starting in 1981, had a horrible, tragic impact on the dancers of the company, over half of whom succumbed to the disease (including Bassae in 1985 and Zamora in 1986). Against all odds, the troupe persevered. Tory Dobrin, who joined the company in 1980 as a dancer, became associate artistic director in 1990 and artistic director in 1993. Taylor, the last member of the original troupe, left in 1991. The Joyce Theater in Chelsea became the company’s New York base in 1997 and has remained so to this day.

The foremost all-male dance troupe in the U.S., Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024. The company reiterated its core mission:

Entry by Jay Shockley, project co-director (December 2024).

NOTE: Names above in bold indicate LGBT people.