Ballets Trockadero captivates Las Vegas audience from first overstated misstep

Ballet is big, serious business generally. Pirouettes and leaps are always perfect, always in sync. Dancers show the emotion appropriate for the piece and no more.

And no dancer would ever make a face or, worse, kick another dancer onstage.

That’s the dance world without Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, which performed Tuesday evening before a sold-out crowd at The Smith Center for the Performing Arts. Professional male dancers, tongues firmly in cheeks, performed both modern and classic ballet, playing all the parts.

Comedic and competent, the troupe dressed in lush costumes, wore exaggerated makeup and wigs, didn’t try to conceal errant chest hair … and captivated the audience from the first overstated misstep and grimace.

The main program listed stage names and biographies that deserved more groans than kudos: Marina Plezegetovstageskaya, for example, is noted for dancing on a herring, while Ephrosinya Drononova is the “People’s Artist and Cat’s Meow,” and Andrei Leftov is “the Prune Danish of Russian Ballet.”

In reality, the dancers all have had extensive ballet training. There is real, good dancing afoot, mixed with the pratfalls, grins, gestures and exaggerated strutting.

The best of the evening was “Chopeniana,” classical dance performed to Chopin.

Giovanni Ravelo showed skill and grace while playing a bejerkined swain whose only focus was on the balcony. The witty Robert Folero and Chase Johnsey led a corps de ballet of ballerinas with moves that would be appreciated from any dancers, male or female. The dance, of course, was mixed with plenty of wrong emotions and actions: hisses, arguments, skirt fluffing and arm shaking, along with that kick in the head and a sleepwalker who seemed uncertain just where the stage ended.

“Walpurgis Night” was a fun way to review Russian dance, and “Go for Barocco” was not the most tender tribute to Balanchine ever choreographed, but its overplayed haughtiness and studied nonchalance were exactly right.