Trockadero brings warm-hearted gender jokes to Toronto
TOURING / Is it drag? Depends on who you ask
S Bear Bergman / Toronto / Thursday, February 10, 2011
http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Trockadero_brings_warmhearted_gender_jokes_to_Toronto-9742.aspx (http://www.xtra.ca/public/Toronto/Trockadero_brings_warmhearted_gender_jokes_to_Toronto-9742.aspx)
Joshua Grant, a gay member of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo — who performs as Katerina Bychkova when he dances the girls' parts — wants to make one thing perfectly clear: this is not a drag show.
"It has a lot of humour, it has a lot of style, and it has men dancing girls' parts," says Grant while visiting family in Arizona during a break, "but we're serious dancers, technically proficient dancers. Trockadero isn't what people may remember from 20 years ago."
When I repeat Grant's not-a-drag assertion to artistic director (and 30-year Trockadero veteran) Tory Dobrin, by way of reassuring him that I know what's up, he cuts me off mid-word.
"It is a drag show. It is very much a drag show. Theatrical drag. Kabuki theatre is drag, and Shakespeare was drag, too."