Paul Ghiselin is the much loved Trock who forever moults in The Dying Swan. Jann Parry takes class and talks to him about pointe work and the serious stuff of being a ballet master…
Back in the last century, when I first attempted to do barre work with the Trocks (for fun and for the experience), their ballet mistress was insistent that they had to be very pulled up, lifting their weight out of their hips. Pamela Pribisco (ex-Cleveland Ballet) was training them to be pointework technicians rather than galumphing would-be ballerinas in drag. Their repertoire was becoming so demanding that they had to learn to avoid injuries while dancing full out. Even so, every role remains triple cast in case of trouble: Trocks have to be versatile as well as tough.
When I turned up for barre on stage at the New Wimbledon Theatre for old times’ sake, the ballet mistress was Iliana Lopez, former principal dancer with Miami City Ballet. She gives a company class workout, demonstrating impeccably. She takes it for granted that the guys are as accustomed to pointework as any female professional dancers would be. When the barres are cleared away, she sets women’s steps, which they dance as men, without camp airs and graces. ‘That’s what Tory (Dobrin, artistic director) wants’, she says. ‘They’re men dancing, not just travesty ballerinas, and they have to be able to do double tours en l‘air as well as fouettés’.
Read the whole interview on Ballet.co.uk
