If Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has a primo ballerina, it is Robert Carter, aka Olga Supphozova. The statuesque dancer simply owns the stage, whether he’s moulting gorgeous feathers as the Dying Swan or whipsawing through chaîné turns in Paquita.

But it hasn’t always been easy for the 41-year-old, who’s spent half his life with the company that features men in pointe shoes and tutus. In fact, you could say Carter’s journey to this proud place is a direct reflection of the Trocks’ own evolution, and both mirror the slow advance to a more accepting society.

“This is a different time, in this modern age of access that everyone can experience now with the Internet. When I started, I was one of the strange ones,” the articulate star begins, speaking to the Straight from his home in Brooklyn before the Trocks return to Vancouver. “I began training at seven-and-a-half at ballet. And, more and more now, you find guys being trained earlier and earlier because consciousness has been raised and parents are more open. But I’m from South Carolina, and it wasn’t such a popular thing for boys to be in ballet at all. There were constant fights and name-calling.

“My mother said, ‘Are you going to allow that to stand in the way of the course of what you want to do? Or are you going to buck up and do what you want to do?’ ”

Carter says the key to his perseverance was finding that support in her, as well as in his “ballet family”. He also received early training on pointe shoes, which was almost unheard-of at the time. And he got his exposure to the Trocks at just 10. Carter went on to train at the Ivey Ballet School and the Joffrey Ballet School, and performed for companies like Bay Ballet Theater and the Dance Theater of Harlem before joining the all-male company in 1995.

“I was so young and I’ve been there so long, that time when I probably could have gone elsewhere to experience something different came and went a while ago,” he says with a laugh. That’s okay with Carter. “I have to say, for myself, I have had quite a fortunate existence with this company. I will be 42 at the end of this month, and I’ve had 21 years of not only a satisfying dancing life with the company, but I’ve been able to see the world as well.”

Beyond the obvious fact that it features an all-male troupe in pointe shoes, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (actually, de New York City) is different from traditional ballet companies in other good ways. “In the conventional dance world, once you get there, it’s not always what it’s cracked up to be,” Carter says. “I got the artistic freedom I did here with this company that I never would have gotten elsewhere. I get to be myself and bring my personality into my character in the different pieces we do as a group.”

Still, the technical demands are high. The Trocks are known for pulling off gender-bending parodies of Russian-style ballet, and that requires a strong sense of physical humour—pratfalls, knockdowns, and sneaky sabotage. “We are all class clowns,” Carter says. But the work also requires killer chops.

Which brings Carter back to the way times have changed, now that lots of boys have the ability to study pointe work if they want it.

“Because of this grand access that everybody has, now you have so many people having a lot under their belt,” the veteran, known as the troupe’s reigning fouetté queen, reflects. “So you have a lot of people thinking they’re qualified—which is a little frustrating to someone like me who’s devoted most of my life to it.

“When I came in, not a lot had the technique to do some of the more difficult works. In those days, even if we weren’t technically perfect, the spirit was fun. Now it has turned into an actual viable career option—and they [the young recruits] are able to do some freaky crazy things!”

However times change, Carter is just happy to be where he is, amid the Trocks’ heavy makeup, blond wigs, and miles of tulle.

“I’m a spiritual person, and I think everything happens for a reason,” he says. “I’ve always been that funny sarcastic one; I was introduced to ballet at an early age, and to pointe shoes. It all culminated in what I do now for a living. Hence the reason I’ve stayed so long, too.”

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo is at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre next Friday and Saturday (January 20 and 21).