Ballerina Boys is a portrait of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The Trocks), an all-male ballet company and international dance sensation. For over 45 years the company has shared their signature style and message of equality, inclusion and social justice with audiences around the world. The men perform classical ballet en pointe and in drag, challenging the art form’s rigid gender norms as they mix rigorous technique with comedy and satire. Inspired by the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the company was fueled by the spirit of defiance and creative exuberance that the gay rights movement unleashed. The film follows The Trocks on tour in the Carolinas, an epicenter of continued struggles for LGBTQ rights. Ballerina Boys interweaves original interviews and contemporary and archival performance footage to tell the remarkable history of the company and culminates with The Trocks’ 2019 performance at the Stonewall 50th anniversary concert at Central Park’s SummerStage in New York City. In the words of ballerina Kevin Garcia, “Every time the curtain opens we represent progress for equality. We just do it dancing.”
S35 Ep8
Ballerina Boys
Discover Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The Trocks), an all-male company that for 45 years has offered audiences their passion for ballet classics mixed with exuberant comedy. With every step they poke fun at their strictly gendered art form.
Features
PRODUCTION CREDITS
A production of Merrywidow Films in association with American Masters Pictures and ITVS. Directed and produced by Chana Gazit and Martie Barylick. Michael Kantor is executive producer of American Masters.
American Masters Pictures
Founded in 2016 by executive producer Michael Kantor, American Masters Pictures is WNET’s theatrical imprint for documentaries co-produced by American Masters, the award-winning biography series that celebrates our arts and culture. American Masters Pictures partners with filmmakers, distributors and sales agents on non-broadcast releases including film festivals, theatrical, online, DVD, VOD and OTT, with PBS as the exclusive U.S. broadcaster of all films as part of the American Masters series. Films include Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, N. Scott Momaday: Words from a Bear, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Itzhak, Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You, Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise and Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable. Since 1986, American Masters has set the standard for documentary film profiles, accruing widespread critical acclaim: 28 Emmy Awards — including 10 for Outstanding Non-Fiction Series and five for Outstanding Non-Fiction Special — 14 Peabodys, an Oscar, three Grammys, two Producers Guild Awards and many other honors. The series is a production of THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS LLC for WNET.
About The WNET Group
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UNDERWRITING
Original episode production funding provided by Jody and John Arnhold, Emily Coward and Raphael Ginsberg, and the Jerome Robbins Foundation.
Support for American Masters is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, AARP, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, Cheryl and Philip Milstein Family, Judith and Burton Resnick, Seton J. Melvin, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Vital Projects Fund, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Ellen and James S. Marcus, The André and Elizabeth Kertész Foundation, Koo and Patricia Yuen, Thea Petschek Iervolino Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation and public television viewers.
TRANSCRIPT
(light, cheerful music) - We were pushing the limits of the definition of what men did.
- What Ballet Trockadero has done over the years is turned this notion of what is beautiful in ballet kind of on its head.
- There is something really empowering about performing in drag.
- [Kevin] This company brings me the opportunity to be finally Kevin, without any wall.
(engaging music) - When we started the Trockadero, we just declared ourselves to be a ballet company, and I just declared myself to be a prima ballerina.
We were up to celebrating ballet, and saying, 'This is the greatest thing in the world,' and it can stand a little parody.
All the things in Gizelle, all the things in Swan Lake, prince falls in love with a bird, and brings her home to mother.
- The ballerina had always been put up on a pedestal and we were coming along and saying, - 'We're going to be all these guys in tutus, we're going to be in drag.
And on top of that, some of us are going to be black.
How do you like that?'
- These guys decided, 'We're going to dance,' and also create something that was a form of resistance.
We're going to be fun, and people are going to love us, and we're gay.
Without the Stonewall riots, I don't think that a company like Les Ballets Trockadero could have started.
- And if you could imagine in those times, we were really frightened.
How are we going to take this show, which is a total downtown phenomenon, and move this to South Bend, Indiana?
- We would be staying at the motel by the truck stop, and we were going, 'This doesn't look like where we want to be.'
(uplifting music) - The Trockadero was a militant organization because we were breaking all of the statues.
We were smashing all the icons.
The Trockadero really has been an ambassador for physical humor and for American humor.
It's a little bit out there.
It's sometimes rude and weird.
We never pulled teeth.
We never tortured anybody.
I mean, except for people that hated us.
(cheering)