DANCE: LES BALLETS TROCKADEROS

Chatting to Les Ballets Trockadero dancer Raffaele Morra, aka the stratospherically stupid Lariska Dumbchenko, aka the leafmould afflicted Pepe Dufka, it’s clear there’s a lot of humour in what he does – never tiptoeing too far into hammy. “I try to be a very good dancer first of all.” Think ironic en pointe, rather than clumsy and clownish. The ‘Trocks’, as they are affectionately called, started in 1974, performing playful late-late shows in Off-Off Broadway lofts. Since then the company’s ranks have swelled and the stages quadrupled – in 1999 they packed out the Lincoln Centre with the largest audience for a dance performance in its history. The motto has remained the same – for men to reproduce classic ballet pieces, playing all the parts. “The ‘real’ dancers like what we do. We put on stage what actually happens – a joke, a mistake, ballerinos bumping into each other – what normally gets hidden, we put on stage. We laugh with ballet at ballet.”

Nov 10-15, Theatre Royal, 108 King St, Sydney, $47.50-95, 1300 795 012 or ticketek.com.au