Drag dance in Austin? Ballets Trockadero has been en pointe and in tutus for 50 years

Amid the recent fracas about drag performance as a threat to the social fabric, historians remind us that the practice of cross-gender performance on the stage goes back to the earliest days of theater in ancient Greece.

And if later it was good enough for Shakespeare's day, when women's characters were played by young males, it was still an intriguing option during the 19th century, when those gender roles were reversed by women in "breeches parts."

Transgressive? Not always. Funny? If done for comedy and done right.

Which might help explain why an all-male dance troupe, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, is now romping through its 50th year of dance hilarity — and high skills — during extensive tours around the world.

No matter the culture, people get it.

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Employing silly and extravagant stage names, the performers, who come from all sorts of backgrounds and training, make fun of the ballet world, while lovingly executing the female and male roles in top form.

On Jan. 19, the Trockadero, sometimes known as "the Trocks," returns to Austin at Bass Concert Hall with a program that includes "Les Sylphides," "Go for Barocco" and "Valpurgeyeva Noch (Walpurgisnacht)".

A Texan in the troupe

The Texas part of the troupe's tour will be something of a homecoming for one member, Tokyo-born Shohei “Sho” Iwahama, 35, who trained at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, where he earned his two degrees in dance.

Iwahama's first dance instruction in the U.S. started at age 18 at the Ailey School, the official academy of the New York-based Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the groundbreaking troupe that will return to Bass Concert Hall on March 2-3. (Interestingly, both Ailey Dance Theater and the Trocks visited Austin during the same week in 2000.)

Before that, while growing up in Tokyo, he did not begin formal training until age 16, late for a dancer.

"I didn't really dance as a child," Iwahama says. "An older sister says I danced when I was 3 or 4 at the studio where she danced. I was just playing around."

He studied rigorous classical ballet first, then modern, although he continued to take regular ballet classes. In 2014, he joined James Sewell Ballet, a contemporary ballet company in Minneapolis.

"Meanwhile, I'd take some 'Nutcracker' gigs here and there," Iwahama says. "Trockadero is my first purely classical ballet company. We all do both male and female roles. I do more female roles. If you are tall — and are good at partnering — you do more male roles, but we are supposed to do both."

He joined Trockadero in March 2022.

Going back to the 19th century ballet — and theater — the roles are often sorted by types, assigned because of one's age or physical attributes, as much as by skill and experience.

"I've danced 'Swan No. 6,' 'Swan No. 5,' and 'Joke Swan'," he says. "I've done 'Emergency Swan No. 1,' who comes on when someone gets hurt onstage. Backstage, they undress that person and quickly put the costume on me. All told, I play more than 10 roles."

When I spoke to Iwahama in December, he was rehearsing in New York for a tour of Italy — nine shows in 5 cities. The current U.S. tour, which includes two different programs, stops in a full 30 cities through April. After that, it's off to Asia through the end of their season.

"Even when we were in the U.K. for eight weeks, we did 37 shows," Iwahama says. "That includes two weeks in London."

The Trockadero dancers parody both the softer, lilting style of romantic ballet and the upright, muscular movements of classical ballet.

"The first time I saw them I was in college," Iwahama says. "My ex had a pair of pointe shoes and I had worn them for about a year — I wore them for too long. In 2013, the Trockadero came to Houston and I saw them live for the first time."

He already had an idea that he might someday audition for the troupe.

"My pointe technique wasn't strong back then," he says. "And as an international student, I was dealing with visas, which for artists are attached to a specific employer. But I pushed myself with confidence."

During COVID-19 shutdowns, he posted videos of him dancing en pointe (up on toes in special wooden-toed shoes).

"I got in touch with a couple of Trockadero dancers and they encouraged me to audition" he says. "I'd had back issues and, after 30, it was getting worse. I could not do a lot of the movement required in contemporary dance, but ballet always helped me with my back. I'm not able to lift because of those issues, but I still do partnering as a male, and I love doing pointe, where I don't have to lift."

In summer 2021, with still a year left in grad school, he auditioned for the Trocks.

"They liked me right away," he says. "But they had no openings. By this time, I still had less than a year left in school. I presented my masters thesis concert in March 2022. The same day, two hours later, I was offered a spot on the Japanese tour. I rehearsed during spring break in New York, and after only a week of rehearsals, I was on the floor right away."

Iwahama's female stage name in the company is Anna Marx. You pick up a sense of the company's humor from the fictional bio sketch in the printed program.

"ANYA MARX comes to the ballet stage after her hair-raising escape from the successful — but not terribly tasteful — overthrow of her country’s glamorous government. She made a counter-revolutionary figure of herself when she was arrested for single-handedly storming the State Museum of Revolutionary Evolution, where her fabulous collection of jewels were being insensitively displayed alongside a machine gun. The resilient Madame Marx is currently the proprietress of America's only mail-order course in classical ballet."

A little Trockaderos background

Conceptually, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo grew out of the parodic magic of actor, playwright and director Charles Ludlam's tiny Ridiculous Theater Company, which burlesqued a wide range of performance genres. A group of his performers formed the Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet Company in 1972. It played in experimental theaters in or near New York's Greenwich Village.

Some of the same performers co-founded Trockadero in 1974. They danced in even smaller, sometimes informal spaces, but after the media discovered them, the Trocks developed a fervid following. They have been touring ever since.

"When they were performing Off-Off-Broadway and in lofts, dance was popping in New York City," Iwahama says. "The people who went to the shows went first to the ballet early in the evening, then to the Trockadero late at night to have fun."

Here's part of what I wrote about the troupe in 2000: "The satiric Trockadero, or Trocks for short, never disappoint hardcore fans. Their one-night stop at the Paramount Theatre was greeted with guffaws as well as gasps for the troupe's astonishing technique.

"These male ballerinas — and sometime danseurs — don't just galumph around, mocking the easily parodied formalities and foibles of ballet. They expertly duplicate 19th-century forms, as well as the styles of neoclassical purist George Balanchine and modernist Merce Cunningham.

"Their take-off of 'Swan Lake,' not only offered chances for slapstick and mugging, but also some very refined movement. The more sober 'Paquita' gave the group's dancers an opportunity to strut their stuff — I mean their technique, silly — in groups and solo variations."

Early on, the main joke was big men struggling to dance in toe shoes.

"The dancers we have now are generally younger and already experienced at pointe shows," Iwahama says. "It's more sophisticated, subtle. Still, its a comedy ballet company. What I personally believe is that we can still do comedy with great technique."

One of the funniest Trockadero bits is a treatment of "The Dying Swan," originally made famous by prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, but unfortunately not included on the Austin program. In the Trocks version, the male performer exaggerates the final convulsions of the big white-feathered bird.

"I just started learning 'The Dying Swan,' Iwahama says. "The role is usually reserved for more senior dancers. But I am one of the older by age. It’s been fun learning one of ballet's most iconic roles."

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Bass Concert Hall, 2350 Robert Dedman Dr.

Tickets: $10-$99

Info: texasperformingarts.org