© Sascha Rene Vaughan Paul Ghiselin bio page Trocks UK Tour Tocks website: www.trockadero.org Ghiselin in reviews Nevasayneva in reviews Pilleaux in reviews recent Trocks reviews Jann Parry reviews

Back in the last century, when I first attempted to do barre work with the Trocks (for fun and for the experience), their ballet mistress was insistent that they had to be very pulled up, lifting their weight out of their hips. Pamela Pribisco (ex-Cleveland Ballet) was training them to be pointework technicians rather than galumphing would-be ballerinas in drag. Their repertoire was becoming so demanding that they had to learn to avoid injuries while dancing full out. Even so, every role remains triple cast in case of trouble: Trocks have to be versatile as well as tough.

When I turned up for barre on stage at the New Wimbledon Theatre for old times’ sake, the ballet mistress was Iliana Lopez, former principal dancer with Miami City Ballet. She gives a company class workout, demonstrating impeccably. She takes it for granted that the guys are as accustomed to pointework as any female professional dancers would be. When the barres are cleared away, she sets women’s steps, which they dance as men, without camp airs and graces. ‘That’s what Tory (Dobrin, artistic director) wants’, she says. ‘They’re men dancing, not just travesty ballerinas, and they have to be able to do double tours en l‘air as well as fouettés’.

They’re experts in pointe shoes, each with his own preferences: which make and width, whether to use gels inside the blocks or to feel the floor, where to sew on ribbons and elastics. Surprisingly, most of the shoes are stock

The real Paul Ghiselin © Sascha Rene Vaughan

sizes, not specially made – there must be a lot of ballerinas with big feet in America. Paul Ghiselin, aka Ida Nevasayneva, the moulting swan, takes size 10, which he reckons must be near the upper limit for a stock shoe. (Joshua Grant, aka Katerina Bychkova, tallest of the Trocks, takes an exceptional size 17).

Paul Ghiselin joined the Trocks in 1995, after 13 years with Ohio Ballet. ‘In Ohio we did a lot of new stuff, created on us by contemporary choreographers such as Laura Dean and Lynne Taylor Corbett, as well as works by Cunningham and Paul Taylor. A great experience. But I was burning out – I could see my career winding down. Friends said I’d suit the Trockaderos – I had a good ballet line, I was somewhat the class clown, so it seemed like a good marriage’.

‘When I joined, we all took pointe class like little girls do in the academies, so that we were equipped to do the classical choreography. In the early Trockadero years, most of the guys weren’t really well-trained dancers. A handful of good ones had to carry the show. Tory’s goal was to raise the standard, so that we could do Paquita, the Pas des Odalisques from Corsaire, all those gala pas de deux. As dancers were replaced, so the quality of the show became more refined – it was very exciting, I loved it. Now, when someone auditions for the company, they can already do the pointework. They’re getting the training in advance – they’re ready to go.’

Paul became the Trocks’ ballet master and repetiteur five years ago. I asked him what Tory and he look for in auditions.
‘We look for a person who is first of all eager, somebody who’s nice to be around. We’ve got to live with them, tour with them – the group dynamic is very important to us. We can’t run a company where everyone picks and chooses their rep. They have to do everything. So we may choose a dancer who perhaps isn’t that great but who is friendly to be around, polite with the others, and who learns quickly. A team player.’

Are you looking for a comedian?
‘If you have somebody going “Look at me, aren’t I funny”, it’s really not funny. It’s kind of pathetic. The humour is built into the choreography, so you’re not dependent on the sense of humour of the individual.’ But Paul adds drily, ‘A sense of humour does help. Oftentimes I’ll ask a dancer “What do you hope to achieve, why are you here?” If they think it’s for fun, there’s a lot of work to it. We do around 120 shows a year, give or take, and we’re constantly on tour.’

I ask him about the Trockadero aesthetic, based, as their full title implies, on the Ballets Russes.
‘When I started dancing in the late 1970s, there were still many teachers from the Ballets Russes around in America, and I was able to study with them. So I got it from the originals. Before you exaggerate a style, you have to really understand it. We reckon it takes a dancer a good year to get into what it is we do – it doesn’t happen overnight. As well as the grandeur, we’re conveying every kind of emotion – envy, jealousy, revenge, happiness, tragedy … actually, our sadness is so faux. Our audiences have always wanted to come and have a good time – that’s what the Trockaderos are.’

Why are men being women funny and not vice versa?
‘I guess it’s because men are supposed to be strong and butch. The male image is muscular, bulky, and to make men look dainty and delicate is just inherently funny in our culture – I don’t know why. A woman impersonating a man just doesn’t do the same thing. It’s all right to see someone feminine become strong - it doesn’t lend itself to humour.’

Can’t you be accused of perpetuating the camp image of men in ballet?
‘No. Because we do it well, we’re honouring what men can do in ballet. We’re not going out there and poking fun without knowing what we’re doing. It’s so demanding. We’re not making sexual references or pretending to be women - we’re just doing the women’s roles, which have the best steps. There’s a whole vocabulary of steps and gestures – it’s a woman’s world out there in ballet.’

Paul gives thanks for Elena Kunikova, who has set gems from the Russian repertoire for Les Ballets Trockadero: La Vivandiere, Harlequinade, excerpts from Paquita and Corsaire and The Little Humpback Horse.

‘Elena’s a wealth of information – she has a library of stuff that she did in Russia. We’re hoping to do a lot more’.

[Kunikova studied at the Vaganova School in the 1960s, performing as student in the Kirov’s ballets and operas. She danced with the Maly Theatre Ballet for 15 years in Leningrad, before moving to the United States, where she teaches, coaches and stages ballets.]

I finally dared ask Paul whether he would ever abandon Ida Nevasayneva’s iconic role as The Dying Swan. (Clement Crisp memorably described the diva as having the face of an affronted toucan).

‘I did. I thought I was retired after I took over as ballet master. Then Tory said to me, “You should still be on stage”. So I gradually got back into it. The Swan, von Rothbart, cameo appearances in other ballets – I just keep going and going, while the body still can.’

I commented that we’d thought Ida’s ineffable performance had seen off the moribund swan for good, but ballerinas still keep doing it in earnest.
‘I’m told that Maya Plissetskaya would do encores, back to back three times, differently each time. I think it’d be too much for me. But it’s amazing how the Trockaderos are referred to now in the same breath as other, major companies. We’ve become part of the same currency.’

I watched the onstage rehearsal before the evening performance in the New Wimbledon Theatre. Tory Dobrin drilled eight swan-maidens for Act 2 of Swan Lake as rigorously as Derek Deane had done his huge corps of extras in the Albert Hall, as shown in BBC4’s documentary, The Agony and the Ecstasy. Dobrin, however, was polite, in a variety of languages.

One dancer was off with a sprained back, meaning reorganised spacings; another, Boysie Dakobe (aka Sonia Leftova), was new and having to learn fast. Solemn in rehearsal, he was a joy in performance, partnering Joshua Grant, the waist of whose tutu he barely reached. We couldn’t help laughing, though both men were performing at their best, after a long day of class, rehearsal and a programme of ballets by Petipa, Ivanov, Gsovsky, Anastos (after Balanchine) and Fokine (a long way after). In the delirium of Raymonda’s Wedding, we saw the ecstasy of being able to dance those gorgeous variations – on pointe.