Most parodies are written out of admiration rather than contempt. It is hard to make the mimetic effort unless one has enough sympathy to identify with the parodee.
-- Dwight Macdonald, Parodies (The Modern Library, 1960)
I'm not sure but that, for parodies to really work, and get their effects in the same way the object parodied works and gets its effects, there has to be a controlling vision commensurate in certain key respects with the original one.
-- Arlene Croce on Peter Anastos's parody of Jerome Robbins: Yes, Virgina, Another Piano Ballet, for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The New Yorker, May 7 1977).
When I tell some people that I take ballet class I am often asked (mostly by men) if I wear a tutu. I usually respond that I don't, but men in Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo do. As founder and choreographer of The Trocks (as they are often called) Peter Anastos says in this documentary, part of American Masters on PBS, "We were trying to upend traditional ballet but we were also trying to affirm traditional ballet." My family gets tired of my statement "the best comedy is the most serious," but The Trocks are serious, beautiful and funny, with the men in drag and dancing on point. Of course many Balanchine ballets make me laugh with pleasure at the intricate choreography and some of his ballets (Union Jack, for instance) have intentional humor that The Trocks use in tribute (Stars and Stripes), but mostly what The Trocks do is to skewer the warhorses, such as Giselle and Swan Lake, which just need a little push to become effective parody in the affectionate and beautiful dancing by The Trocks.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been successfully ahead of its time, starting shortly after the Stonewall riots in 1969 and surviving to dance in the 50th anniversary celebration of that significant event, in a more inclusive world.
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