LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO Returns To The Joyce 12/14-1/2/2011

The Joyce Theater is thrilled to welcome back LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE Monte Carlo for its biannual three-week NYC holiday engagement, December 14, 2010 - January 2, 2011. The season will feature two different programs and two Joyce premieres, performed by the primo ballerinas that have made this beloved troupe the foremost all-male comic ballet company in the world. To purchase tickets, please call JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or via the internet at www.joyce.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue (@ 19th Street) in Chelsea.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Tory Dobrin, Artistic Director), the tutu-fabulous all-male international dance sensation, returns to The Joyce Theater with two joyful programs just in time for the holidays. With an astounding mastery of ballet technique, flamboyant personalities, and maybe a little more chest hair than your average Giselle, the world-renowned ballerinas of the TROCKS illuminate the passion, tragedy and joy of classical ballet, all squeezed into size 12 pointe shoes. As London's Sunday Telegraph wrote recently about the company, "We might have come to laugh, but we stayed to worship." This season, see the company's parodying of classical favorites like Swan Lake and contemporary works like Merce Cunningham's Patterns in Space, which Joyce audiences will see for the first time since 2000. Also on this season's programs - two Joyce premieres: From Harlequinade, the TROCKS offer a rarely seen highlight or "Pas d'Action" staged by Elena Kunikova, ballerina of the Maly Opera Ballet of St. Petersburg; and Walpurghisnacht, the fifth act of Faust, with music by the French composer of Ave Maria, Charles Gounod.

With legends like Olga Supphozova, Sveltlana Lofatkina, Lariska Dumbchenko returning with the company, the TROCKS are guaranteed to provide a shimmering, comedic and superlatively danced evening of family-friendly ballet this holiday season.

PERFORMANCE SCHEDULE
Tuesday, December 14 at 7:30pm
(Opening of Program A)
Program A
Wednesday, December 15 at 7:30pm
(Humanities Series)
Program A
Thursday, December 16 at 8pm
Program A
Friday, December 17 at 8pm
(Opening of Program B)
Program B
Saturday, December 18 at 8pm
Program B
Sunday, December 19 at 3pm
Program B
Sunday, December 19 at 7:30pm
Program B
Monday, December 20
No Performance
Tuesday, December 21 at 7:30pm
Program B
Wednesday, December 22 at 3pm
Program B
Wednesday, December 22 at 7:30pm
Program B
Thursday, December 23 at 8pm
Program A
Friday, December 24 at 3pm
(Special Christmas Eve Show)
Program A
Saturday, December 25
No Performance
Sunday, December 26 at 3pm
Program A
Sunday, December 26 at 7:30
Program A
Monday, December 27
No Performance
Tuesday, December 28 at 7:30
Program A
Wednesday, December 29 at 3pm
Program A
Wednesday, December 29 at 7:30pm
Program A
Thursday December 30 at 8pm
Program B
Thursday, December 30 at 8pm
Program B
Friday, December 31 at 5pm
(Special New Year's Eve Show)
Program B
Saturday, January 1
No Performance
Sunday, January 2 at 3pm
Program B
Sunday, January 2 at 7:30pm
Program B

Program A:
ChopEniana (Les Sylphides), Patterns in Space, La Vivandiere, Raymonda's Wedding

Program B:
Swan Lake Act II, Pas de Deux to be announced, Pas d'Action from Harlequinade*, Walpurghisnacht*
*Joyce Theater premiere

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo will perform a three-week season at The Joyce Theater from December 14, 2010 - January 2, 2010. Free post-performance "Humanities" dialogue following the Wednesday, December 15 performance. Tickets start at $10, range up to $75 and can be arranged by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800 or online at www.Joyce.org. Please note: Ticket price subject to change. For more information about the Trocks, including tour schedule, please visit www.trockadero.org. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at 19th Street.

ABOUT THE COMPANY
Founded in 1974 by a group of ballet enthusiasts for the purpose of presenting a playful, entertaining view of traditional, classical ballet in parody form and en travesti, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo first performed in the late-late shows in Off-Off Broadway lofts. The TROCKS, as they are affectionately known, quickly garnered a major critical essay by Arlene Croce in The New Yorker, and combined with reviews in The New York Times and The Village Voice, established the Company as an artistic and popular success. By mid 1975, the TROCKS' inspired blend of their loving knowledge of dance, their comic approach, and the astounding fact that men can, indeed, dance en pointe without falling flat on their faces, was being noted beyond New York. Articles and notices in publications such as Variety, Oui, The London Daily Telegraph, as well as a Richard Avedon photo essay in Vogue, made the Company nationally and internationally known.

Since those beginnings, the TROCKS have established themselves as a major dance phenomenon throughout the world. They have participated in dance festivals in Bodrun, Holland, San Luis Potosi, Madrid, Montreal, New York, Paris, Spoleto, Turin, and Vienna. There have been television appearances as varied as a Shirley MacLaine special, the "Dick Cavett Show," "What's My Line?" "On-Stage America," with Kermit and Miss Piggy on their show "Muppet Babies," a BBC Omibus special on the world of ballet hosted by Jennifer Saunders and have had their own solo specials on national networks in Japan and Germany, as well as a French television special with Julia Migenes.

The TROCKS' numerous tours have been both popular and critical successes - their frenzied annual schedule has included six tours to Australia and New Zealand, twenty three to Japan (where their annual summer tours have created a nation-wide cult following and a fan club), nine to South America, three tours to South Africa, and fifty two tours of Europe. In the United States, the Company has become a regular part of the college and university circuit in addition to regular dance presentations in cities throughout the 50 states. The Company has appeared in over 30 countries and over 500 cities worldwide since its founding in 1974. Increasingly, the Company is presenting longer seasons, which have included extended engagements in Amsterdam, Athens, Auckland, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cologne, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, Lyon, Madrid, Melbourne, Moscow (at the famed Bolshoi Theater), Paris (at the Chatelet Theater), Rome, Singapore, Sydney, Vienna and Wellington.

The Company continues to appear in benefits for international AIDS organizations such as DRA (Dancers Responding to AIDS) and Classical Action in New York City, the Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, Dancers for Life in Toronto, Canada, and London's Stonewall Gala. In addition, The TROCKS' have given, or participated in special benefit performances for Connecticut Ballet Theater, Ballet Hawaii, Rochester City Ballet, Sadler's Wells Theater in London and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center and Young Audiences / Arts for Learning Organization, and the Ali Forney House, benefiting gay youths in need, in New York City.

The original concept of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has not changed. It is a Company of professional male dancers performing the full range of the ballet and modern dance repertoire, including classical and original works in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. The comedy is achieved by incorporating and exaggerating the foibles, accidents and underlying incongruities of serious dance. The fact that men dance all the parts--heavy bodies delicately balancing on toes as swans, sylphs, water sprites, romantic princesses, angst-ridden Victorian ladies--enhances rather than mocks the spirit of dance as an art form, delighting and amusing the most knowledgeable, as well as novices, in the audiences. For the future, there are plans for new works in the repertoire: new cities, states and countries to perform in; and for the continuation of the TROCKS' original purpose: to bring the pleasure of dance to the widest possible audience. They will, as they have done for thirty three years, "Keep on Trockin."