Ep #9 - "The Trocks"

Listen to Raffaele Morra, Associate Artistic Director, former Ballet Master and dancer in Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Joining the chat are two company dancers A.J David and Felix Molinero del Paso who speak about what life is like being part of "The Trocks". 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:09

Welcome to Mayflower Spotlights podcast. In this episode, we're going to find out what the tops are all about. From the ballet master to two of the company. Now, I am very, very excited to speak to you, Raphael. Oh, I but you have quite the title, and you say it very much better than I do.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Oh, I'm not.

SPEAKER_03 0:37

So could you introduce yourself, please?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I'm Raffaele Moro. Raffaele is in Italian.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I am the associate artistic director of Le Ballet Choccadero de Monte Carlo.

SPEAKER_03 0:49

And La Ballet Troccadero Di Monte Carlo. De Monte Carlo.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Tell us all about that. It's known as the Trox.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

The Trox, yes, it's much easier to call it the Trox. Much, much easier to call it. You'll note how quickly I get that. So it's a company, it's an all-male comedy ballet company that was created, was funded in 1974 in New York. It has nothing to do really with Monte Carlo.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Monte Carlo is a parody, or let's say is an homage to an older company that was based in Europe in the beginning of the 20th century, the Ballerist de Monte Carlo. Just like them, we tour all over the world to bring uh ballet and culture, if you want, a little bit of culture to everywhere in the world. More than just culture, we want to bring ballet and we want to bring a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

It's an all-male, as I say, so all the dancers you'll see on stage are male dancers.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

The comedy part comes from the exaggeration of the style, and something a little bit there and there, a little bit more clumsy if you want, but it's pure ballet and it's pure fun. It's really a lot of fun for this company, yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

But even when you are putting on a show that is comedy and is fun, the ballet is still absolutely spot on, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

So that sounds like hard work.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Oh, it's very hard work, and the dancers really have a very hard job because they every day we need to warm up, we need to get like train again, like starting from the beginning. Because I mean your body, you wake up in the morning and your body is different from the previous day. So you need to kind of retrain a little bit. Uh, and you need to warm up, you need to remember everything we do, and then we travel so much that we need to kind of rehearse every time the ballets, sometimes lightly, sometimes more in depth, on a on a different stage, because a stage tonight may be a different size from the one from yesterday. So we need to adjust the ballets on the stage. Sometimes the stage is rake, sometimes the stage is flat. So it's a continuous work, work, work, work. It's very hard.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

So when you're moving between venues, do you find that the dancers have their legs up by their ear, you know, just warming that bit up? Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

If you come later when we're gonna take class, you'll see some dancers with high extensions, or yes, you'll see the legs up by the ear. You would have never seen mine up there because I was never that flexible, but yes. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

And so in some of these routines, you sort of parody other ballets that we might be a little bit more familiar with.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

So not during our warm-up and not during our rehearsal, but during the performance, yes. So you might recognize titles such as Swan Lake, which is something that we do, for example, in this program.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

But with an all-male cast. All male cast.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

So Odette, the Queen of the Swan, is one of our dancers, a male dancer. Um and it's a lot of fun. So we take the ballet as it is, and then we start tweaking here and there, exaggerating a couple of things, or even just keep the mistakes that happened in rehearsal and keep them on stage. So we kind of give you a behind-the-scenes look, but on stage of what's happening in our world. And also everything that ballerinas always wanted to do, they are allowed to do it on stage most of the time. That's how we create the parody of it. But at the same time, as we said, we train so much that the ballet technique is there.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

And so who would you say this is, who would you like to see in the audience? Is this for people that are dance fans or ballet fans or I don't know, who you are aiming at? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes, everyone is welcome to our show. It's good for balletomen, meaning people that really love ballet, that know ballet, and they might see even references to ballet that are a little bit less known to the general audience, or things that general audience doesn't perceive in in watching a ballet performance, but we know, such as technical, stylistic uh exaggeration, uh, so they would appreciate it. But people that do not like ballet or people that don't know ballet, yeah, they could come to our show and it's a wonderful introduction. Okay, it's good for all kinds of audiences, also for like adults, senior citizens if you want, kids, it's just for everyone. And can you tell us about your role with the trucks? So my role is pretty much the keeper of the company well-being and the company repertoire. So I teach ballet class, I teach I um I teach the ballets to the newcomers when they are new in the company, I need to teach them what the ballet is gonna be about. And then I'm the one sitting in the front of the room when they are rehearsing to also say, I'm sorry, but this is should be like this, this should be like that, and keeping the repertoire alive.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

The company's touring through dance consortium. What does a partnership like that make possible for a company like the Troc?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

So we've been touring with uh Dance Consortium since uh years ago, ages ago. We started before with Heather Knight, and now we're continuing with Joe Bates, chief executive director of the dance consortium. And these tours are really helping us a lot because we can tour extensively in a country for two full months. That doesn't really happen in other countries where there is no such a union of uh of theaters that combine their efforts to bring a company from overseas. Even though we're not a big company, it's still expensive. But if all of them come together, then we can organize a wonderful tour. So it's really like a group effort, and it's wonderful because we are allowed to go to anywhere in the UK and everyone can come and see us, while otherwise we will probably have difficulties to reach you.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

And finally, what do you think dance gives to people? What does it um what kinds of feelings does it bring up? What what does dance have that other um disciplines might not?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

So I'm gonna answer about the trucks and our performance. What we bring is um two hours of fun without thinking of the troubles or the problems that you have outside of the world.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

We don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

So yeah, well, we know that the situation out there is not the easiest for anyone in any country, and we bring two hours of pure entertainment. Abandon yourself and just enjoy what you see. Uh it's beautiful dance, it's a lot of energy coming from the dancers. And of course, usually the audience is giving us a lot of energy as well. So imagine it's a wonderful communication for two hours. It's really like a lot of fun. I would like for ballet in general to be like that. Sometimes ballet or modern dance can become a little bit difficult for people to understand. Well, not for sure, our show. Our show is very easy, it's self-explanatory, it's just pure comedy and laughter to us.

SPEAKER_03 8:34

Um, so it's lovely, lovely to have you here, AJ and Felix. Now you are dancers with the Trox. Tell me what the Trox is all about for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Well, uh, I have been here for a while for a minute. So it was like a dream control when I had the privilege to join this company was really like a thought more than you know, maybe one dream. Of course, no, it's not gonna happen, but you know, you never sometimes you are not sure what actually can happen in your future. So it's a big uh worldwide, well-known company uh doing something that is pretty unique, that there's nobody in the business that does what we actually do. So, you know, taking into uh the step and doing all these ballerina roles that in a regular ballet dance company you will never have the privilege to do them and share the time with people that share your dreams, like all of us, we kind of have the same uh thought, and you know, getting to into your personas, you know, each uh of the dancers we have for ballerina and our male and names and getting to know I think a different size of us, uh it made you know probably completely change my life.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

So and and you you talked about the names there, your given names, aren't you? Or did you come up with them yourselves? Do you okay? So can you run me through your names and some of the company names?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Um, mine is Vera Videldik. Uh, one of the very few, a little bit more inappropriate names, but uh an honor to have one of those. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And I'm a holiday abroad.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Holiday abroad. We love this. And then you were also saying about the different roles that you have to take in uh, I suppose in each different section of the show. Um, how many of those roles do you have per show?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Well, it depends on the cast of whether the programs that we were bringing to that city, and you know, the casting is changing every every show. So you kind of uh need to. Well, one thing that we are encouraged or ballet master encourages is to learn uh the biggest amount of roles so we are able because you never know what can happen in the middle of the show. Uh-huh. Suddenly somebody can twist their ankle or something can happen with lightning. You never know. So it's good to be able to, you know, to be versatile and be able to know a little bit everything. But sometimes, like we were mentioned, he mentioned before, you can be in Swan doing one of the Swans during Swan Lake, and suddenly you can go to Raimundan and doing the lead male character. So you could be jumping from one another. So you it's very exciting.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

So you've got to know a lot of what goes on. And look, you've almost got to be mastercrafts people at your ballet. You must have to be to be able to step into those roles, to be able to do what you do. What age did you start ballet?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Um, I started at age seven. So with an eighth, eighth and a half.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Okay. Okay. And then it became something that when did it become something that you thought, okay, I could probably do this for a living. Like, this is amazing. This could be my career.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Um, when I was in around middle school or high school, um it dawned on me, I was like, okay, I could maybe make something out of this. It doesn't just have to be like something that feels lofty. I can really set my mind to it and try and like set up a path for myself and see where it leads me.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Well, in my case, uh I think I I was uh taken seriously considering that I could do a career of this. Because you know, I my parents were very super supportive into that. They were the ones who actually introduced me to ballet. I didn't even know what it was. It was just like, do you want to try? And I said yes. Okay. And after many, many years, there was a moment where uh I needed to decide because since I was a kid, I have been a person that it has a lot of energy, so I have done many different sports. I was kind of what, you know, most of them. So there was a point where you know uh dance was taking you needed more time in order, so I needed to stop doing other things. Uh-huh. So I needed to choose the preference.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

So you need to decide which route you'll take.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

You cannot do a hundred things at the same time. There's no so many hours in the week. So there was a point where I think I was like 16, where I was like, I mean, my teachers were encouraged me as well, like, hey, you have the talent, you have the good path to you could make a career, but at the same time, your parents are looking for the best of you, and you know, this world, this ballet world is not easy. There is so like so talented, so many amount of people that have so much talent, and sadly, it's not, you know, this is not football, this is not tennis, it's not basketball. So it they were very like, you know, we we want to support you, but you will you really need to be make sure that you are aware of what you're doing, so definitely.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Um, and then when you audition, I'm presuming that you audition over and over, and then you join the Trocs, how does that feel? Um and then do you do sort of additional training to become part of the company?

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Um so I moved to New York just um a couple months before auditioning for the Trocs, and I was planning on being more of a freelance dancer in New York, and when you do that, you're just kind of auditioning all the time, and you have to kind of um not become callous, but be okay with rejection and just like not necessarily go into anything with like super high hopes. You're like, okay, I'm gonna do my best here. If I get turned away, that's alright. Just because it's so um it can be intense, the dance world, as Felix was saying. Um, so when I auditioned for the Trucks, I was like, just gonna put myself out there, see what happens. I was like, oh, well, oh yes, I would love to do this. Yeah, thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:09

And so do you do intensive training after that then?

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, definitely. Like um, in my in my case, I was finishing my bachelor's degree in German in Frankfurt when uh and I was trying different auditions for being doing like an internship stuff, but more modern contemporary stuff. And I always knew about the company. I I was actually, thanks to my bali teacher in back in the day, who was like, you know about the trucks, and I was of course I know what is the trucks, but it was like there. So she encouraged me to send them an email, they answered me, and I was lucky enough that they were touring in Germany in that time. So then what they invited me over to take some classes, and you know, we did some kind of audition, and I was lucky enough to join them, and my you know, my brain switched completely because I was you know, my focus was into more contemporary modern stuff. And I decided to to start more training, you know, on point shoes, because you know, as as you probably are not sure if you know guys, but uh ballet dancers, guys. We we we don't do ballet classes, point shoe classes on on clouds.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

So the point shoe is where the whole foot is just on the top of so that's the floor.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, you're holding just.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

But you've got a block in the the front of the shoe, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

So like glue and fabric. You would think if you like hit a new point shoe on the floor, it sounds like it's made of wood. Yeah, it's just a lot of glue and fabric.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Okay. So it's like a memory foam mattress, is it? I wish. If I'm I'm sure it feels like that. And so so the guys would not normally train on point. Um, and how does that feel when you're doing that?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Well, I I do have to say that with the new generations, these things are starting to change because you know, you ballet dancers, you are into doing big turns, big pirates, big variations, big jumps. That that was the male character that you need to bring on stage. And the girls, you need to be more dedicated, more sweet, more speedy, you know, be able to jump small jumps, but small jumping, you know. And sadly, this is us. So where we approach these ballet uh dance uh variations where normally created for females, but we wanted to show the world that as a guys we are able to deliver as well as the as the girls, but at the same time showing them that we are guys, we are males doing female variations on point shoes.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yes. What's your favorite role to play?

SPEAKER_02 17:57

Oh, that's a good question. Um, right now, I recently learned a dance called Go for Baroco. Um, and I've really been enjoying doing that. Tonight will be my third time performing it on stage. Oh, so recent debut. Um, and that one has been very, very exciting to be in.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

My case, I would say so far, probably Pale 4. It's a very it's a four ballerinas ballet, which each one of them has a uh uh variation. They dance the four of them together, but there is a part which each one of them shows their skills performing a variation and they dance again together, and it's a very stylistic uh ballet, and it's for me it's very it's very hard, but at the same time I can really go into the character and really, you know, let myself and feel like I'm back in the old time of ballet, so probably that's my favorite one.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Do you ever get um big reactions or or funny reactions from the audience?

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Um something I've noticed is when we walk on for four little swans, which is something you might have seen before, it tends to be a little bit more in the um, I feel like public eye of what people might know about ballet. It's where there's four swans and we're all holding hands, and we walk on stage as a group. Um, and the audience, the people who know Swan Lake might be familiar with it, they're already laughing before we even do anything. They're like, oh god, what are they about to do? Someone actually, I think last show I heard someone go, Oh god. It's like, yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Well, that's actually how the we feel every time the week go out.

SPEAKER_03 19:51

Oh yeah, they get it, they understand what's happening here.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Yeah, definitely, because to be honest, like each audience can really surprise you. Sometimes just in the first entrance of the first person who enters for Swan Lake, they already like clapping like crazy. Or sometimes you can get people that are more you know quiet, more you know, taking their time to really realizing what is going on, what what's happening around. But of course, when you feel like they are having a good time, it's actually bring us back an extra, you know, push of hey, they're they're having a good time, let's show them what we're gonna show, you know, just try to give our best, really give us more energy, more courage, and more you know, energy to try to deliver the best possible.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

So if someone hasn't been to see a lot of dance, what would you say to them about coming to see something like the Trox? Sorry, what would you say to them about coming to see the Trox?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Um, I would say that it can be a really good introduction to ballet because sometimes if you go to a normal ballet company, um it'll be, you know, these long story ballet full-length works, which can be a little bit less palatable, if you will, um, unless you're already really invested in ballet. Um there'll be like how long, like three hours. There'll be, they'll be and I love this is from someone who loves ballet. Sometimes it's like, okay, this is a lot of ballet. And we deliver a lot of ballet, but we do excerpts from pieces. So you still get you kind of get this um palette of ballet, and you're able to kind of get um Is it like the TikTok algorithm for ballet? Little bit slower. It is helpful, it is, it can be helpful, and you can kind of we we vary like the the styles of ballet too. So go for Baroco, the piece of a Talking about earlier is more of um like a modern, not modern dance, but like a modernized style of ballet, a newer style of ballet. Um, whereas we have older ones like Patricatra that are like very old style. So you kind of also get this mix of what ballet can look like throughout the show.

SPEAKER_03 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

No, I would say first, as I mentioned before, they are gonna see something that they have probably never seen before if it's their first time. Something they are not gonna find anywhere else aside of us. And it's um open to every single person in the world. It doesn't matter how your age, uh, if you like ballet or not, because you guys you can like ballet, but you can like you don't like ballet, but you like comedy, but you and you don't like comedy, but you like ballet. So you're gonna have a very different, you know, uh things to say, and we jump, because it's different when you go in a regular ballet company and you see only one, you know, like Swan Lake, and you only see Swan Lake for two hours and a half. In this case, we show you maybe this night a little bit of Swan Lake, suddenly we jump into Paquita, which is another with uh more uh stylistic ballet, or you have Pada Catcher with this uh all-time more, you know, like royalty ballet, or you jump into something more modern like Golfo Barocco or Metal Guardian in this case, another piece that we actually have. So you are gonna be able to see different things, different types of movements, but uh keeping the same is like our point is to make you guys, the people who is watching us, to leave the theater with a smile on their faces. That's the point and that they have a good time. You because you can go and see us and you maybe have a rough day because of your life situation, your work situation. But you come to see us and I promise you that you will leave the stage being very happy, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

In the trucks, you do dress up in drag in tutos. What's the most difficult part of that process? Is it the makeup or or uh which bit?

SPEAKER_02 24:05

For me personally, it's um not getting too carried away because we only have so much time to get ready. Um and um I I love drag a lot and I love getting into drag, performing in it. Um, but there's also this unique balance with the trucks that we're also doing a ballet. So and drag um traditionally is done more up close, a lot of times in bars, so you get this kind of mix of the like um the very like the proscenium stage, this um kind of um very like classic version of performance with drag, so it's a little bit different the way you would do stage makeup versus drag makeup, and kind of finding that balance as well, and being like, okay, I'm not I'm not getting ready for I'm getting ready for both a drag show and a ballet at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

And to be in that huge theatre, you know, Mayflower Theatre holds 2,000 people, that's a hell of a lot of people that are gonna be looking at your makeup and they need to be able to see it. So it's gotta count, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

No, in my case, I would say definitely the makeup because uh thanks God we have somebody in wardrobe who takes care of our costume, so we don't need to dress our ourselves. But in my case, I had when I joined the company, I have less than zero knowledge about makeup. Definitely. I still remember my face, my first time that I went on stage with that makeup. No, no. So after all these years, you know, I started to get in touch and in love with makeup and be more creative and you know, you know, you know, getting polished my technical skills, let's call it like that. Um and trying to, you know, what fits the best for the night of the show or what I do feel more the most comfortable with. And um, of course, uh it's something that I right now, uh for me used to be something that I was like, makeup.

SPEAKER_03 26:17

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

It was the time that I was like, no, I hate this process. But right now for me is a very my moment to really like, you know, we we have a rehearsal, we're time to set up the show, the spacing, and that's my time to really go into myself and you know, take a moment to breathe in, deliver my makeup, and be start to think about what I want to show the audience that night. You know, how I want to do this, how I want to do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

It's very much like me getting ready for a night out, actually, it sounds like yeah, it's like time to kind of focus in and like give yourself a moment of like performing your giving away a lot to the audience, and then but in order to do that, you also need to be able to center yourself.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Yeah. And I think doing your makeup, you know, you're concentrating on your face, you are you are centering yourself, aren't you? I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yeah, giving a moment to kind of like um ground yourself in who you are and who you're showing yourself as to the audience.

SPEAKER_03 27:18

Perfect. Thank you so much. This podcast is presented by me, Zoe Hansen, the podcast lady, and produced by Owen Noon, Rebecca McKillop, and Kelly Clark from Mayflower.