Dance company headed to Ferst: ‘We make people laugh with ballet’

As a young ballet dancer growing up in Italy, Raffaele Morra dreamed of one day performing on the stage of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre, the most famous and prestigious dance venue in the world. In 2004, on his birthday no less, his dream came true, albeit in a slightly different form than the one he’d always imagined.

Morra may have started out studying and performing conventional ballet with the renowned Teatro Nuovo in his hometown of Turin, Italy, but he's now a member of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, which he joined in 2001. The comedic all-male drag company sends up the conventions of classical ballet by performing, as they did at the Bolshoi, in tutus and pointe shoes. The company brings its comedic take on ballet to Georgia Tech's Ferst Center on April 9-10.

“They loved it,” Morra says of the exacting Russian audience when they witnessed the performance of the Trocks, as they’re colloquially known, at the deadly serious Bolshoi Theatre. “They understand little details that most audiences don’t understand. Just a little shoulder twitch we do because it’s in the style of classical ballet, they understand and laugh. They understand the difficulties.”

And difficulties they are. Most of the Trocks, like Morra, come from a rigorous background in serious ballet, and company members must still be intimately familiar with the correct balletic style of movement before they approach it as comedy. “We take it very seriously,” says Morra, who has also been a ballet master with the company since 2013. “I know we make people laugh with our shows, but we do daily rehearsal just like any other company.”

A typical day for the New York-based company, now celebrating its 40th year, has always started early in the morning with a ballet class, followed by coaching, rehearsing the dances that will be in upcoming shows and creating new works, a process that can last well into early evening.

“It’s difficult for a dancer in the company if they’re not classically trained,” Morra says. “It’s impossible almost. It is a ballet show, 100 percent a ballet performance. The technique is all there. The comedy is on top of the technique. We don’t really make fun of ballet, we make people laugh with ballet. It’s a little bit different.”

Morra says that even though the company’s approach to performance is rigorous, the shows themselves have a broad appeal. “We offer a fun show,” he says. “It’s done very well so you can enjoy a nice ballet performance, but you can come without knowing anything about ballet and still enjoy it very much. It actually makes a good introduction to such a difficult art. A lot of people come see what we do as their first ballet, and then feel they can go investigate what the real companies do.”

For the show in Atlanta, the dancers, who take on the names and personae of old-time Russian ballerinas, will perform some of their most well-known works including their version of “Swan Lake.”

“With all of the tragedies around us, a lot of people need to laugh,” Morra says. “They need a moment to relax and have fun at the theater. There are too many shows around that are slow, dark, depressing and difficult to understand. You don’t want to go to the theater and go home even more depressed than when you went. If you have the opportunity to see our show, you’ll definitely leave the theater with a smile on your face.”