COMPANY KEEPS AUDIENCE ON ITS TOES
Documentary is affectionate tribute to gay male ballet troupe that’s a long-standing source of empowerment
The ballet world is generally seen as a little self-serious, to say the least. But there are exceptions to any rule.
Case in point, or should I say pointe: Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.
The New York comedy-ballet company is the subject of Montrealer Bobbi Jo Hart’s engaging documentary Rebels on Pointe. The title is apt: this troupe of gay male ballerinas built a 40-plusyear career by breaking stereotypes with flair, panache, guffaws and, surprise, technical proficiency. Emerging from the social upheaval of post-Stonewall Riots New York, and surviving the AIDS crisis, the company has been a long-standing source of empowerment. They’re on tour 200 days a year, and big in Japan.
“It’s such an incredible balance between high art and clever camp,” says James Whiteside, principal dancer for the American Ballet Theatre, early in the film.
New York Times dance critic Gia Kourlas and the Scotland Herald’s Mary Brennan back him up. But Hart doesn’t get caught up in trying to make the case for the company’s legitimacy. She lets the work speak for itself, via ample performance footage showcasing the ensemble’s impressive technique and shrewd comic timing.
She spends the rest of her efforts getting to know the dancers. There’s the charismatic Robert (Bobby) Carter, who came to New York from the American south with dreams of joining the Trockaderos. And Carlos Hopuy, who learned to dance from his prima ballerina mother in Cuba and studied at the country’s national ballet school.
Company director Tory Dobrin, a former Trockadero dancer, tells of the long-standing tension between whether to focus on the dancing or the humour. His contribution is to embrace both. To joke around in a foreign language requires a certain fluency, notes Elena Kunikova, Trockadero choreographer and former dancer for the Kirov Ballet; it’s the same with dance, she argues. Though it stretches thin in the third act, Rebels on Pointe is an affectionate tribute to a dance company that dares to defy convention.