Dublin Dance Festival 2026: Les Ballets Trocadero De Monte Carlo

Les Ballets Trocadero De Monte Carlo. Image, José Luis Marrero Medina.

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There’s a festive feel as large crowds converge on Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. Ready to enjoy a double celebration. The opening night of one of Ireland’s friendliest and artistically rich festivals, Dublin Dance Festival 2026. Which opens with another opening night, that of the fierce and fabulous Les Ballets Trocadero De Monte Carlo’s 50th Anniversary, 14 venue tour of Ireland and the UK. Presented by Dance Consortium, The Trocks as they are affectionately known, bring their own unique brand of ballet and comedy to Dublin. Which, after fifty years, is as lively, fun and subversive as ever.

Unless you've been living in an alternate dimension you’ll most likely have heard of The Trocks, most famous for their comic reimagining of Swan Lake. This all male dance troop injecting drag, kitsch and comedy into an art form often known for its oppressive seriousness. Long before there were drag brunches The Trocks were taking high art and making it low brow without sacrificing the physical rigour required of professional ballet. True, synchronisation is sometimes more of an approximation, but most routines are evidence of that old truism; you have to be really good to look this bad.

Jazmin Chiodi (Artistic Director for DDF), Tory Dobrin (Artistic Director for Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo)

Antonio Lopez, Felix Molinero del Paso and Vincent Brewer (Dancers) . Image uncredited 

For two hours, including two intervals, audiences are wildly entertained. Opening with scenes from the much loved Swan Lake. The Trocks are at their ballet and comedy best. Consistently inconsistent, competently incompetent, elegantly graceless, their sublime and hilarious choreography is likely to have Petipa dying of laughter or turning in his grave. This being Swan Lake the pantomime, parody, pastiche, or The Ballet That Went Wrong. Darling divas, disorganised swans and a prince spitting feathers strutting and swaggering like the royalty they are, poking fun at ballet's conventions. More follows in Act Two, which includes one of the most prolonged death scenes for a dying swan ever staged. In Act Three's Walpurgisnacht, Liam Hutt's pastoral Pan reminds you just how good The Trocks really are, before the night rounds out with a rousing tribute to their current host country.

There have been volumes written in praise of The Trocks, and volumes more that deserve to be written. But you might ask what have The Trocks to offer after 50 years? Haven’t we had enough Swan Lake send ups? Might as well ask have we had enough Swan Lake? The fact is The Trocks serve a vital and necessary function in the eco system of dance. All too often dance, especially ballet, feels like reading the Bible; heavy on self-serious reverence, light on life affirming laughs. The Trocks playful puncture such pretensions and conventions with respectful irreverence. Bringing to ballet what is often absent, enriching it by transcending its limits, making ballet accessible to all. So what are you waiting for? Dublin Dance Festival has brought the party. Get your Trocks on. The Trocks are back in town.

Les Ballets Trocadero De Monte Carlo’s 50th Anniversary UK and Ireland Tour, presented by Dance Consortium, runs as part of Dublin Dance Festival 2026 at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre until May 1.

For more information visit Bord Gáis Energy Theatre or Dublin Dance Festival 2026