Ballerina Boys 2020
Distributed by Passion River Films, 154 Mt. Bethel Rd., Warren, NJ 07059; 732-321-0711
Produced by Chana Gazit and Martie Barylick
Directed by Chana Gazit and Martie Barylick
Streaming, 53 mins
High School - General Adult
Ballet; Documentaries; Diversity; Gay and Lesbian; Gender Identity; Social Movements
Date Entered: 09/13/2021
Reviewed by Linda Yau, Free Library of PhiladelphiaThe appearance of a ballerina on pointe is beautiful for anyone to look at. For dancers who are members of the all drag comic ballet company, Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo also known as Trocks, their goal in dancing is a way to make ballet approachable to the general public, while breaking social gender roles. On their company’s website and within the documentary, company members represented a range of ethnicity, sexuality, having disabilities, and body types.
This documentary has the eventful history of the Trocks. Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo is an all-male ballet company that began after the Stonewall Riots in New York and is the first of its kind in 1974. The Trocks survived the AIDS epidemic and currently tours around the United States and the world. This documentary interviews current and past members of the group. Each member of the company currently has professional ballet training, but from the beginning, Trock members may not have professional dance training, but they have courage to be in drag and dance.
A weakness of this documentary is the few spoken voices. This documentary only has spoken voices from primarily Caucasian dancers, with a few speaking moments from people of color. Viewers do not really hear much about the impact of this group, other than a selected number of voices and perspectives from within the company.
Ballerina Boys had been included as an episode within PBS’s American Masters series, and this expands the viewing age range to a general all ages range. Academically, Ballerina Boys can be a film to support introductory curriculums of sociology and gender studies. This documentary doesn't go beyond introducing viewers to the existence of this dance company, with a reality that it is possible that a male dancer performs female ballerina roles. Ballerina Boys is recommended to be purchased and placed in by public libraries with an existing LGBTQ collection, but it can also be placed into a general documentary collection.
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