Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo's Artistic Director, Tory Dobrin, speaks with Jacob's Pillow Scholar-in-Residence, Maura Keefe, in this 2024 PillowTalk. Dobrin shares his own firsthand stories and reflects on the impact of 50 years of blending serious ballet technique with comedy and drag in this all-male company.
Full PillowTalk including commentary on video excerpts of the company's repertoire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VzzAG70B3o
Video playlist 'Gotta Laugh' featuring excerpt of Paquita by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:
https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/playlists/gotta-laugh/
Video excerpt of Swan Lake by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow Archives. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce this episode with Tory Gobrin, Artistic Director Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, in conversation with Maura Keefe, a Pillow Scholar-in Residence. On the 50th year anniversary of the company, affectionately known as The Trocks, Tobrin shares first-hand stories and reflects on the cultural impact of blending serious ballet technique with drag and comedy.
Maura Keefe: Ballets Trockadero was founded in 1974. The founding artistic directors were Peter Anastas, Natch Taylor, and Anthony Bassé. Just three years after their founding, the company had already performed on Broadway and on national television. Now, 50 years later, as the company says, the original concept has not changed. It is a company of professional male dancers performing the full range of ballet and modern dance repertoire, including classical and original works in faithful renditions of the manners and conceits of those dance styles. Tori Dobrin, joining me today, joined the company as a dancer in 1980 and is now the artistic director. So Tori. Tell me a little bit about 1980 joining the company.
Tory Dobrin: You mean way back when? (audience laughs) Who remembers? (audience laughs) Well, when I first joined in 1980, actually, , we did a very long tour to the South America. And, in 1980 was the height of the military dictatorships. And so I'm quite sure that the government, whose permission we had to have thought we were the Ballet of Monte Carlo (Keefe laughs). And I think they had no idea it was a drag ballet company (audience laughs). So anyway, the, the audiences were so fantastic because they needed somewhere to put their energy in light of how restrictive and difficult things were. So it was just the most fun situation ever. The audiences were like screaming and throwing flowers. So this went on for quite a few weeks and I got hooked. Uh, and, uh, it's been, 44 years later, I'm still here.
Maura Keefe: When did you start to realize that maybe you had a sensibility for thinking about not just what you would do every night on stage, but thinking about how the, company operated.
Tory Dobrin: I never meant for it to happen (audience laughs). What happened is in the mid eighties, I guess I got hurt on stage and the wonderful general director who actually was the founding general director didn't want to go on a tour to France and he asked me if I would be the road manager and I said, sure. And so that's how it started. And so after that, it just accelerated. About 1980, when I started, being a dancer, the, the City of New York, the cable station, CUNY, had this, every Sunday they would show these old Ballet Russe photos, and also from the Kirov, and they were just so, at first I thought they were so, uh, mannered, and then I thought, Oh my God, this is perfect for Trocadero. As the 90s went on, I became friendly with Elena Kunikova. She danced in St. Petersburg at the Mali. And she started staging these old ballet, Russian ballets for us.
And the reason why I went in that direction is because I went to see a ballet company at City Center. I won't give you the name, San Francisco Ballet (audience laughs). And they, they did all spandex ballets. There was no tutu. And I thought, I want to see a tutu. I want to see a tiara. And so I thought, okay, we're finding our way now. So Elena said all these great ballets on us and including La Vivandière. And that's really where we started to get a lot of attention from critics, especially in London, because we would start going to London because they wanted to see these old ballets and they had no opportunity unless they went to Russia. But if you look at these older ballets, there is a rich vocabulary that just is kind of losing its, um, a mojo with the contemporary choreographers, which is fine because, you know, we're doing on something else these days, but you'll see there's very interesting, actually ballet choreography, ballet technique. If you're a ballet nerd, you'd like these, um, uh, this expression of technique and steps.
Maura Keefe: Tell us about making choices as artistic director about who's doing what role.
Tory Dobrin: We're a small company and we're a touring company, so everybody has to learn every role. 16 dancers, let's say, everyone's learning everything. And once they learn their thing, they are learning another part. So that's how we basically do it. You know, a lot of the what we do is, uh, personality based. So, we actually have a way of organizing our performance. So, the first performance is, uh, usually Swan Lake. And then we throw the kitchen sink, you know, we have the musical jokes, we have the, uh, you know, the obvious jokes, we have the ridiculous jokes, we have the character jokes. And then in the second act we kind of, we try to change it up so that the audience is not seeing the same thing all evening long, because that can get very, very tedious.
We're not trying to educate the audience. We're trying to entertain the audience. We actually don't inject the humor. If you inject the humor then it's more of an intellectual exercise rather than a natural funny exercise, and that's really better for humor just to, for it naturally to come out. Also, we've done many cast changes with this ballet and every ballerina, every guy, every, they all have to do it in their own way because you can't have Lucille Ball and Joan Rivers with the same material, do it in the same way. So it really depends on the leading dancers that, uh, we depend on them to bring their own brand of comedy to it. I don't know if you noticed that, uh, all of our music is double time. And when a dancer first joins in, they say, it's too fast. I said, it's not too fast, you're too slow.
The dancer Cenzón Candelaria, who was Tamara Bumdieva. And he was actually the first real super good dancer to join the company. He joined in the very late 70s. And he was fantastic, not only as a dancer, he'd been a, uh, principal with Boston Ballet, and he had also danced with Nureyev at the Frontier Ballet Company. He was not only a great dancer, he was a great comedian. He just broke all of our hearts. But he was so subtle in his, in his humor. And he was the, uh, unabashed star of the company until the mid 80s. And he really, in my mind, put the company on the map because of the strength of his performance, uh, and he was absolutely great. And of course, unfortunately, he was one of the first, uh, persons to die from AIDS, uh, which was, had been a big problem in the company, uh, and the world.
I will say unabashedly, the dancing has gotten better (audience laughs). Uh, the lead of Paquita, for instance, uh, major ballerina under any circumstance in any ballet company. The only difference between him and, let's say, um, you know, Diana Nemishneva is he has these really big, strong legs and she would not want those big, strong legs, so when I joined the company, we were older. We were competent dancers but can't compare today. When I joined, I was handed a pair of pointe shoes and said, go for it. It takes you, you know, a year or two to get familiar.
Now society has changed so much. We all know that. For instance, when I joined in 1980 there were no children in the audience. Now there's tons of children. So that indicates how much society has changed. Same thing with the um, the dancers. At first, you know, we were not respected, at all. I would say in the 80s, 70s, 80s, even into the nineties. Then we did this documentary, not documentary. We filmed a couple of performances at Maison de la Danse in Lyon. And those, uh, that video went all over the world. It was shown at outdoor festivals and dancers, especially in Europe, saw us and wanted to do that.
And also (clears throat), we're not a gay show, per se, uh, because we don't address gay issues, but there's tons of gay sensibility, because, uh, except for the people , in our administration, and so on, and we're all gay guys on stage. So there's a lot of gay sensibility. So people who wanted to express that, you know, gay guys around the world, , they have an outlet for it. Sometimes we get guys who are interested in the drag, uh, aspect of it. Sometimes we're, the pointe shoe aspect, and sometimes the classical ballet aspect, and sometimes the comedy aspect. And we like all of that ingredients because it gives each individual a different point of view. You're seeing a variety of different personalities on stage. It's not cookie cutter. Uh, and you can tell the difference between one and the other because they all come with a different point of view and a different, um, uh, sense of humor.
Maura Keefe: I'm thinking about the muscularity that comes with training for men, whether they've been on pointe shoes or not, that they would have learned that kind of bravura performance. And that, that, that can be summoned in the same way as the kind of refinement of what a woman would be trained to do. And I'm thinking of it in, is it in Paquita where the, the soloist does the double tour, which is not typically done by women soloists. And so, um, how is that fair? That's, I guess I can sort of been thinking a little bit about, about, um, that it's not an attempt to only be the ballerina and her world.
Tory Dobrin: Well, first of all, I'll say life is not fair (audience laughs). When I was born, God did not look down on me and say, Oh, your life will be beautiful (Keefe laughs). Nothing will go wrong. No, life is definitely not fair. Uh, we're an all male comedy company. We're not competing with women at all. We don't want to, we, we, we have a point of view. And so he's doing double tours because he does great double tours (Keefe laughs). And it's very musical and it looks good and it's surprising. So we want to surprise the audience. And weren't you surprised? Yeah. Three beautiful double tours. Uh, so that's why, did I answer that question?
Maura Keefe: So you're saying that, that everything is welcome. That whatever is going to make the dancing best from both the technical and virtuosic aspect, but also from the entertainment side.
Tory Dobrin: Absolutely. We want to mix it all up and surprise people and show what we can do. And if we can't do it, we won't show it. Uh, I will say about the pointe work and stuff is that, um, I like to say that what we're doing is not a refined pointe work. What we're doing is, I say, blunt instrument pointe work (audience laughs). So, It's sort of like, we think of the pointe shoe as a, as a piece of equipment. So it's like tennis. So, Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi. I love Steffi Graf. Uh, they go on the practice court and they do the same exact strokes. You know, they practice all the same exact things. And then they get on court, and Steffi Graf is this beautiful, uh, um, grace to her, she runs around the court. Of course. And then Agassi, he looks to me like he's just hitting the ball hard, which is also effective. So we're not Steffi Graf. We are Agassi. We're hitting the technique hard. And so you're seeing something very usual in an unusual way. And that also is lending itself to, to the depth of the company and what you see, the projection.
Maura Keefe: As artistic director, I think you're saying you want to maintain that even if men are coming with all the experience of being on pointe earlier in their career, unlike you when you joined the company, you still want it to be a blunt instrument, the pointe work.
Tory Dobrin: Well, let me refine that a little bit. Uh, pointe work is a highly developed skill. So even if the guys come, come here comfortable on pointe, that doesn't really mean they know how to dance on pointe, in a, in a, in a good way. So our ballet master, Raffaele Mora, he teaches point classes and has tips, and he's danced all the roles, of course, so we refine what they're doing, and so it's still a kind of refinement of technique. For instance, like when you, just as an example, when you do a bow at the end of Paquita, you can walk off and not pointe your foot. Uh, but they, and before they step, they point. And that's something that a guy would never learn in school, but a girl absolutely would learn that.
Maura Keefe: Last time you were here, you did a piece called, Patterns in Space. Based, uh, choreo, choreography after Merce Cunningham.
Tory Dobrin: Can I talk a little bit about Patterns in Space? (Keefe: Sure). Because it's a really great story. We were very friendly with Meg Harper, who has probably been here on multiple occasions. She was in the Cunningham Company, I think in the 60s or 70s. And uh, she, we were very friendly with her and she asked Merce Cunningham, uh, if we could have, not have, but license one of his pieces. And he said, sure. So he gave us Cross Currents and we licensed Cross Currents and we premiered it in London where? It was premiered. And, uh, the stipulation is that we couldn't change one step. And, of course, we change every step possible in order to make it work and find funny.
So I tried to get the same music that he had used for it, which was Colin Nancarrow, and it was so expensive, uh, that I thought, you know, we can't possibly use the music. So I came back to rehearsal and said, uh, we can't get the music. What do we do? And so the ballet mistress, Pamela Probisco, who worked here quite a number of years, she started improvising, you know, so the dancers would have some music or whatever. And we all joined in and we all started laughing hysterically. And so what did we do? We put two musicians, our dancers, on stage and they improvised the music (Keefe laughs). And that's where we found humor (Keefe laughs). And so, You know, we didn't think about it ahead of time, and that's how it developed. Now, Merce Cunningham came to see us at the Joyce, and he said, uh, that he thought the dancing was fine, ballet dancers doing my choreography, but he was generous. But he was angry that we were making fun of John Cage (audience laughs).
Maura Keefe: That's nice. It's very good. He's sitting right there behind you looking at you right now (Keefe laughs).
Tory Dobrin: So anyway, I think that's a great story, you know, and John Cage, as we all know, did all sorts of wild things (Keefe laughs).
Maura Keefe: I wonder if you could say something about that every performance, there's somebody who doesn't No, they're going in to see a company of men dancers. What do you think about that moment of discovery for people?
Tory Dobrin: Surprise (audience laughs). Well, we're trying to set it up earlier in the program. So you saw Swan Lake, for instance, the curtain goes up and a character dancer dances around. So the audience is, uh, seeing the joke, he gets tired and so on. So the audience is saying, Oh, okay. This might be funny and then Benno comes out with the Prince and they have this exchange also a little bit funny and then the first drag ballerina comes out. So the audience actually has a moment to, uh, settle into the idea and then it's quite clear when the Swan Queen comes out that it's a guy, I think, at least it's clear to me. So, that's how we kinda introduce it.
(audio from live performance)
Maura Keefe: Let's talk a little bit for a moment about coming into the company and the act of naming oneself or being named, because every dancer has more than one identity in the company. Could you talk a little bit about that process?
Tory Dobrin: Sure. The names actually started because, uh, just as a little history is that, you know, in the old Ballet Russes when, uh, Diaghilev, uh, came from Russia after the revolution. He was, he lost, uh, access to the Russian dancers for the most part. Not totally, because obviously Balanchine and, uh, Danilo came. But he started having to hire European dancers who didn't have Russian names. But everyone considered to be a good dancer, you had to be Russian. So even in the, uh, you know, in the 80s, in ABT, it was a big to do about that. So for instance, a teacher that I had in New York was Nina Stroganova, but she was Danish, and she was out to dinner with Leonid Messine, and she was talking about joining the company, and they agreed she would join the company, and she was eating beef stroganoff (audience laughs). She became Nina Stroganova. So, the teacher I had in Los Angeles where I grew up was Patricia Denise. She was Alexandra Donisova. You know, so that's, so that's why we change all the names and give everybody these ridiculous names in homage to that time. So that's part of ballet history.
Maura Keefe: Are you naming? Do you have a roster of future names that are witty that you will, bequeath on somebody in a knighting ceremony?
Tory Dobrin: Well, this is probably not believable, but we go to Japan a lot, and, uh, I love Kabuki, and, you know, the names are passed down in the family, and, uh, actually, we have a lot of, uh, Japanese sensibility. Uh, not hard. It's hard to find, but there is a lot of Japanese sensibility. For instance, the lighting. We want the lighting to be bright so you can see it. A lot of times you go to dance companies, you can't see it (Keefe laughs). So I insist on lighting that everyone can see. And that's hallmark of Kabuki. I mean, so they pass the names down. So I like to keep the names sort of around because it lends to a kind of historical sense. And I like that. Um, And so what happens is usually we lose a dancer and we hire a dancer and I got to send the program out immediately. And so I just choose the name. And so I have a whole, in my computer, you know, names and uh, I'm actually kind of good at it (audience laughs). You kind of look at them and figure out a name. So that's how that happens.
Maura Keefe: What about the sort of pretense and theatricality? Are you using the names offstage? Are you using them in rehearsal? Or is it, Tori, do this, do this, uh, section of the Potesties today?
Tory Dobrin: Well, uh, no, you know, like, uh, gay guys tend to, you know, play around with names.
I mean, Raffaele was Larisca. Sometimes I call him Larisca. Uh, Ida, Paul Gieselin, who has danced with us many years, he was Ida. Even his parents started calling him Ida (audience laughs). You know, my name was Margaret and people call me Maggie. You know, I mean, so we play, it's part of the fun. Part of the fun. Uh, so, yes.
Maura Keefe: This is Odalisque. Do you want to say anything about this?
Tory Dobrin: Odalisque was actually the first ballet that we did with Elena Kunikova. For the, it began our Russian journey, and I wanted to see if we could do it because it's, uh, actually very sophisticated choreography, ABT does. I saw the Kirov do it when they came to the Met, I guess in 19, uh, I don't remember when, early 90s. First time they came, uh, after many years, and I saw this in the full, full length Corsair, and it's actually beautiful choreography, very sophisticated, and what we're doing is we're exaggerating it. For instance, you'll see there's a lot of chin down like that, which the Kirov doesn't do, but we do as a way to, uh, exaggerate the style, um, and I think it's a delightful ballet. You know, it's exaggerated dancing, but they're still doing all the steps (audience laughs). But it's just, we make it fun. Uh, also there was a part where they could have actually bumped in the end, but we didn't give you the bump (audience laughs) because it's too obvious and everyone be waiting for it. So we didn't do it. We have done it in the past, but not there (audience laughs).
Maura Keefe: I have to say one of the reasons I also love this is the beautiful costumes. I feel like it's part of the visual pleasure as well as the kinesthetic pleasure to see these kind of costumes. Can you say something about working with a costume designer?
Tory Dobrin: Sure. Well, the costumes in this case was done by Mike Gonzales, who, uh, was a really, he was also a dancer, but a really creative, uh, costumer. Uh, and he passed away many years ago already from HIV, but, uh, I mean, who in their right mind would put green costumes on a ballerina? That's just not a normal color. But they work beautifully. Uh, and, so, the important thing about the costumes, first of all, is that they're sturdy. Because guys tend to be harder on clothes than girls, I think, is the general sense. And also, they're bigger. And they dance more, um, with more, uh, uh, uh, well, that's not true. You know, they just dance and destroy the costumes easily (audience laughs). So, the, so you have to actually be sure that, you know, you're sewing them well and all that. Uh, and, but the important thing is to kind of do the correct style, but then add a twist so that it's not exactly classical, but there's something about it which, uh, is a little, uh, eccentric. And that's what we're looking for. Future….
Maura Keefe: Projects, commissions, and, uh, choreographic residencies. Say something about that.
Tory Dobrin: So we actually hired, uh, somebody named, uh, Durante Versola, who came in in December and, uh, staged a ballet I've been wanting to do for a long time. His homage to Symphony in C, uh, by George Balanchine. We call it Symphony and it's Dougan music, which is, who is the, um, teacher of, um, Bizet. And so we just finished that in, uh, December. And, uh, we actually, thanks to the, uh, Jacob's Pillow, we were able to tech it here, which was really great. So that’s one of our new things. It's a full company closing. It’s like Paquita closes the evening. And it's lovely. The guy is lovely choreographer. The movement just poured out of him.
Now the question is humor, no humor. So when we choreograph something, we don't actually put the humor in. The humor comes naturally in rehearsal. So right now the ballet is not humorous, but we will have, the dancers will find their charming ways to project, and we will add in the appropriate moment when we see it, a joke here or there. Also, it's the last part of the evening. For instance, when you saw Paquita tonight, it's not filled with jokes like Swan Lake is. And that's because, in my opinion, that gets tiresome. At some point, you just want to stand back and have a look. And that's what this ballet will be.
Maura Keefe: Mm-hmm. You want them to find their own, their individual take on the roles, but you're also working with them on crafting that character in a different kind of way from coaching them in their training as dancers. It's, I'm talking about a little bit about the coaching of facial expression and some of the….
Tory Dobrin: Sure. I mean, there's lots of different types of guys that join the company, and some guys actually need help. Uh, and if they need help, they actually don't get to do a lot at first, and they are, uh, you know, they watch whatever other people are doing to get, um, an idea of what's appropriate. We try to explain, you know, the storyline or whatever, uh, but then there's some people you have to stay out of their way because they have an innate sense of, of what, what to do. You don't tell Lucille Ball how to approach her character in I Love Lucy. No one needs to do that. Uh, she knows how to do it. And we have a lot of guys like that who, uh, the Dying Swan, Bobby, uh, who's been with us many years. He doesn't need help, uh, you know, it's, um, so some people you stand out of the way and some people you help, uh, and, uh, it, it, if you need help, it takes time. Uh…
Maura Keefe: Cause it's not necessarily part of a dancer's training at all to be thinking about anything except the action of the movement, maybe.
Tory Dobrin: Well, we spend a lot of time, uh, it's called face notes. Like I don't know if you noticed in Swan Lake when the choral is standing on the side, If you go to New York City Ballet, which I love, you know, you look, I look at the choral a lot, you know, and sometimes the girls are just standing there and looking like they want to be in somewhere else. And then there's some who are smiling. So, you know, um, so we have face notes. So the dancers, for instance, in Swan Lake or they're standing on the side, we're saying, you need to engage your face so you don't look miserable or sad or something (audience laughs). And we always say the way you do that is in engaging your cheekbones also in Paquita when they're standing there like this. You know, we really talk about engaging your face so that the energy. I mean, it's not just that. It just, it's, uh, the total energy has to support the leads. So everyone present has to be totally, it's like tennis, you know, you just can't hit the ball. You got to be totally engaged to do it. So everyone on stage has to be totally engaged to elevate what's happening on stage. And even if the audience doesn't know that particularly, you can feel the good energy coming off the stage. And I think, Did you feel the good energy coming out of the stage? Everyone was very, very present.
Maura Keefe: Wondering about, whether it's becoming increasingly part of, a young man's training to dance on pointe as well.
Tory Dobrin: The pointe work actually sometimes gets a bad rap because these, uh, girls who are very young, uh, they actually don't know how to dance, but they're, uh, you know, they're learning how to dance. And so they're. and they're putting on pointe, and the process to get strong, you know, can be torturous, because they're learning something that is difficult, and they're not quite formed yet as a dancer. Let's say they're 12, 13, or whatever. So they don't quite have the strength of the legs. They don't have the coordination, so that's where the bad rap of pointe shoes really come. By the time the girls are 16, 17, it's not a problem at all. Pointe work is like a piece of instrument, like the tennis racket, so our guys, um, they're, they're coming very comfortable now on pointe. But, uh, you know, they buy a pair of pointe shoes, uh, they, after class they, you know, play around on pointe and so on and so forth. But they're, uh, they're trained dancers. So that means they already have the coordination. They already have the musculature to handle it. So it's just adding on to the skill of ballet dancing.
Uh, it's just sort of almost the same as folk dance. I mean, uh, character dancing, you know, we're not really taught in America to be, you know, uh, really good character dancers, but it's just another skill and that's point work as well, um, to call me, for instance, who did the lead of Paquita, I mean, his pointe work is like almost unbelievable. Uh, and he trained for two years, uh, in Russia at the Vaganova school. And so his training is absolutely fantastic. Jake Speakman, who did the Swan Queen, uh, went to Hunter College, where he also, uh, worked on pointe, uh, and so that, uh, Jake, uh, Trent, for instance, who did the lead of Barocco, he did his M.A. and worked on pointe and stuff like that. So it really comes with a mixed bag.
So pointe work is only not possible if something is wrong with your feet, such as you have blisters, or then you're very uncomfortable. But otherwise, it's, it's actually fun. And, uh, you really feel, have you ever gotten in the morning and done like this great stretch and you just feel so great? Well, that's what pointe work can feel like. Yeah, you really feel pulled up and, um, uh, everything is flowing and it's really great, especially when you turn, if you turn on pointe, it's really exciting to turn on point because you can't fake that because you'll fall flat on your face (audience laughs). Long Zhou, is now dancing in Dusseldorf, which is a really nice ballet company, but he's a guy dancing on pointe. And for instance, he takes the male class because they divide the class up, but he does it on pointe. And at first, this is just here, he's, he's joined this year there. And at first people were like totally perplexed and now they totally accept him and that's really great.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.