Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo to Perform at The Peacock Theatre This September

Trailblazing comedy ballet company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, aka The Trocks, are back in London to present two programmes at The Peacock Theatre from 6 to 17 September. The iconic company is loved world-wide for hilarious spoofs of - and loving homages to - classical ballet.

Every performance froths with tutus, testosterone and some serious prima ballerina attitude as the company's 16 extraordinary dancers take on a kaleidoscope of roles and transform into their male and female alter egos to perform beloved classical ballets and modern works danced to music by Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Vivaldi and Massenet.

Programme A (6 to 10 September) includes the company's signature work, Le Lac des Cygnes (Swan Lake Act II) which sweeps the audience into a magical realm of swans; Nightcrawlers, set to Chopin nocturnes and choreographed by founding artistic director Peter Anastos; and the Bolshoi Ballet-inspired high Soviet balletic camp of Valpurgeyeva Noch.

Programme B (12 to 17 September) includes the abstract classical ballet Les Sylphides set to the sublime music of Chopin with its evocation of dreams, desire and melancholy; the fiendishly difficult Vivaldi Suite, an homage to Balanchine; and the Spanish-styled Majisimas, a seductive demonstration of the intricate beauty of classical ballet technique.

The Trocks started out in 1974 as a downtown New York drag act in the wake of the Stonewall Riots. Nearly 50 years on, The Trocks are known and loved worldwide for their hilarious parodies of the conventions of classical ballet. Over those years they have shared their signature style and message of equality and inclusion with audiences, providing a stage for dancers often under-represented in ballet, whether that be due to sexual orientation, gender identity, size, class, race or ethnicity. As Kevin Garcia, a dancer with the company since 2017, says: "Every time the curtain opens, we represent progress for equality. We just do it dancing."

This is The Trocks' seventeenth visit to the UK. It's the sixth tour presented by Dance Consortium, an 18-strong group of large-scale venues in the UK and Ireland with a mission to tour a diverse range of international dance companies to a nationwide audience. They celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2020 and this is their 50th tour.

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