Dublin Dance Festival opens with Trockaderos

Dublin Dance Festival opens on Thursday, April 30, with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo launching the 2026 edition at Bord Gáis Energy Theatre. (dublindancefestival.ie) (rte.ie) The Trocks are scheduled for two Dublin performances, on April 30 and May 1 at 7:30 p.m., in a two-hour program with two intervals. Tickets are listed from €26.50 to €56.50. (dublindancefestival.ie) The company is touring Dublin as part of its 50th Anniversary Tour, and Dublin is the first stop on a 14-venue Ireland and United Kingdom run presented by Dance Consortium. The tour then moves to London on May 5. (onedanceuk.org) (danceconsortium.com) Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is an all-male comic ballet company founded in New York in 1974. Its dancers perform classical repertory with drag personas, pointe work and parody that depends on exact ballet technique rather than stand-up comedy. (trockadero.org) (dublindancefestival.ie) That mix of spoof and skill is central to why the troupe is opening the festival rather than appearing as a side event. Dublin Dance Festival describes the company as the act that will open the 2026 edition, and the festival is using the engagement as part of a broader citywide program running from April 30 to May 16. (dublindancefestival.ie 1) (dublindancefestival.ie 2) The wider festival stretches beyond theatre stages. Organizers have scheduled world premieres, Saturday-night club takeovers, screenings, virtual-reality experiences for young people and free outdoor events at venues including the Abbey Theatre, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Bewley’s Grafton Street and Humanarium at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. (dublindancefestival.ie) (rte.ie) Among the largest new works are Emma Martin’s *Soft God* at the Abbey Theatre, Junk Ensemble’s *STORM 1.0* at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and Mufutau Yusuf’s *The Fifth Sun* with Luail, Ireland’s National Dance Company. Christos Papadopoulos also brings *My Fierce Ignorant Step* to Dublin after winning the Rose International Dance Prize. (dublindancefestival.ie) (rte.ie) For the Trocks themselves, the Dublin booking comes 52 years after the company’s 1974 founding and after a half-century built on ballet in-jokes, invented Russian stage names and male dancers rotating between ballerina and danseur roles. One Dance UK said 14 dancers from Spain, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, Italy and the United States are on the 2026 tour. (trockadero.org) (onedanceuk.org) The opening night, then, is doing two jobs at once: starting Dublin Dance Festival’s 17-day run and importing a 50th-anniversary company that built its reputation by treating ballet as both tradition and target. The curtain goes up at 7:30 p.m. on April 30. (dublindancefestival.ie)