Pas-de-deux from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake."
Choreography Maurice Petipa.
Imagine, if you will, a group of eight or so muscular men gracefully prancing around a stage dressed in tutus, ballet pumps, sparkling tiaras and a generous helping of blusher and false eyelashes.
Sounds like a drag? Well it isn't. This is, in fact, one of St Petersburg's most serious and professional ballet troupes which is fast gaining recognition on the international arena.
Despite its tender years -- it is three years old -- the St Petersburg Male Ballet is already somewhat of a cult in the city in much the same way that the Rocky Horror Show became a cult in the United States in the 1970s.
Tickets are snapped up weeks in advance, the concert halls are bursting to the rafters and the audience, unlike its polite and reserved counterpart at the Mariinsky Theater, goes wild.
At its last St Petersburg performance on May 17, carnations and roses were showered at the artists at every available opportunity, spectators scrambled on the stage to kiss the hand of the "leading ladies" while the end of show encore lasted an incredible 20 minutes.
To see a comparable kind of enthusiasm that this troupe generates in a hall full of people one would need to see Madonna in concert or watch Italy tackle Brazil in the World Cup final.
But in their wild cries and raptous laughs there isn't a hint of ridicule or the kind of mocking spectacle one witnesses at a circus. There is only good humored admiration of these, nothing less than professional, dancers.
The St Petersburg Male Ballet was founded by Valery Mikhailovsky in 1992 when the Boris Eifman Ballet's talented former dancer appeared for the first time as a choreographer.
The idea to have an all-male ballet had been with him for a long time but under communism the idea was inconceivable in a country ruled by hard-liners who did little to encourage aesthetic non-conformity.
Then with the collapse of the regime, Mikhailovsky successfully applied to the St Petersburg's Mayor's Office for the right to form his troupe. The company's premiere was shown in October 1992 and was highly acclaimed by audience, media and experts alike as a "revolution in Russian ballet" as one newspaper put it and a "sensation" by another.
The St Petersburg Male Ballet.
For the first time in the history of Russian ballet men were dancing famous female roles from classical ballet on pointes
In just three years Valery Mikhailovsky's St Petersburg Male Ballet has prepared three programs. The company has toured in Finland, Israel and most of Russia's main cities, being enthusiastically welcomed by the audience.
Such reknown publications as Dance Magazine (USA) and Dance (UK) have featured the company. Its winning score also includes over 100 reviews, five television shows and three documentaries.
The company has just returned from a successful tour in the States where they made their New York debut at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center and were described as "persuasive, classic and stylish" by the New York Times.
The evening's repertoire is split into two distinct parts. The first half "Hommo Ecce" or "Man as he is" features innovative and expressive modern dance to the music of Vangelis, Beethoven, Bach, Handle, Schnitke and Albion and choreography by Mikhailovsky himself, Eifman, Bejar and Sigalova.
The tableaux symbolically demonstrate through dance how man strives to realize himself, to understand his identity and express his individuality. The dancers are sometimes twisted in seeming pain and sorrow as they are pitted against life's bitter disappointments. Other dances reflect naive innocence, spiritual reverence, and even downright nastiness.
The second half is what surely the audience has been waiting for. Although as an intepretation of classical dance this troupe is deadly serious and accurate to a fault, they must know that for the audience it's party time.
A six foot tall strapping dancer in a pearl-white tutu glides gracefully onto stage courted by a pint-sized four foot dancer who is small enough to be devoured by the vamp towering above him.
They are, in fact, both enacting out the famous courtship scene between Seigfried and Odette in Swan Lake -- so touching.
Then comes an elegant tableau of ladies, uh, should we say gentlemen in flowing rose chiffon numbers. "Sweet Talking Guy?" no, rather Puni's technically demanding "Pas-de-quatre." Fokine's "Spectre de la Rose" is positively "Gone with the Wind" with a demure dancer in layers of fluffy white crinoline doting on her attentive lady -- I mean -- man in red.
The second half continues with a score of popular numbers including excerpts from Minkus' "Don Quixote", Puni's "Esmerelda", Sen-Sans "Dying Swan" and Puni's "Pas de Quatre."
Finally all eight take to the stage to give an amusing rendition of Maurice Petipa's "Paquita," one of the most sparkling dance suites from the 19th century Russian repertory.
But comedy aside, it is impossible to mock this troupe when what they do faithfully reflects traditional classical choreography and training and what is done is performed with technical excellence and pure sophistication -- simply dazzling.
A touching moment from K. Weber's "Spectre de la Rose".