Getting the pointe.

Bart De Block remembers it well, that night in Manhattan's Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse when he debuted with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo: "I was sitting in my dressing room, hearing them laughing with Swan Lake and Barocco, and all that funny stuff, and I thought, Uh-oh, I'm going to be so serious; how are they going to react? When I came onstage, it was, like . . . silence." In fact, that night there was the faint sound of jaws dropping in awe at his flawless pointework, rivaling that of any major ballerina. The audience, by then totally engaged by the Trocks' good-natured parodies in drag, hardly expected such downright virtuosity. After the opening pas de deux the silence was enthusiastically broken by an astonished audience, applauding because a man could dance so exquisitely on the tips of his toes.

"Then, when I started my fouettes," De Block says, "they started to clap, then suddenly, `Shhh!' Like I would lose my concentration or something." He laughs. "They were all so surprised that it happened."

Indeed, astonished! Sipping a large orange juice in an Upper West Side coffee shop a week later, De Block recalls the performance. His dancing skill and serene performance demeanor represent a departure from the relentlessly broad parody for which the Trocks are famous. His physical mastery by any standard, and his refusal to play for easy laughs, make us reevaluate our assumption that a man doing a woman's steps is necessarily a comically grotesque anomaly. Tatiana Youbetyabootskaya, his elegant, technically brilliant onstage persona, bewigged in a chic red French twist, is captivating.

In person De Block is warmly outgoing, with light grey eyes, short sandy bangs, and lively, articulate hands that punctuate his nearly perfect American English. Gsovsky's Grand Pas Classique is his only ballet in the repertoire so far, since he joined the troupe only two weeks before the premiere. But, he explains, he already knows the Black Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, and he'll probably do the Trockadero's new mounting of Paquita this spring. Unlike most of the other company members, De Block will not have a male counterpart to his female persona. "I have been doing so many male roles already in Berlin. I want to have a completely new focus. I mean, I like males dancing [as men] on pointe, but I want to perfect the female side. I'm always aiming for perfection in all the roles I've done so far."

Born in Ghent, Belgium, he discovered as a child that he liked to move to music and at age eleven was encouraged by his mother, a nursing supervisor, to begin dance training locally. Neither his older brother nor younger sister, both now engineers, shared his artistic flair; his father is a schoolmaster. Soon his dance teacher suggested that his prodigious aptitude could be better developed in Antwerp at the academy of Royal Ballet of Flanders. At first he missed living at home during the school week, but he soon adjusted and his progress was rapid. During the six-year program, from age twelve to eighteen at the academy, he had three years of Graham technique as well as ballet and academics.

When cast in a male character role at the Berlin Opera Ballet, where he's danced for seven years, De Block began dancing on pointe. "It felt really comfortable for my muscles, my strength, my technique, to have this feeling with the pointe shoes," he says. "Since then, I've been taking classes on pointe whenever I'm not dancing [male] classical roles." He credits a female dance partner for giving him good toe-dancing tips. "The dancing starts in the top of the leg," he indicates, "not in your ankles; [dancing on pointed improves your lift. And you have to have the right shoes. When they're right, they should be like house shoes. It took me two years before I found my right shoes: Freed's." Always alert to a marketing opportunity, he has even proposed doing a commercial for the shoemaker. "Why not?"

Going out on a limb to dance as a ballerina is a calculated move for the twenty-seven-year-old Belgian. He accepts his talent graciously but has a ravenous appetite for new challenges. In Berlin he got to work with contemporary dancemakers such as Stephen Petronio, Karole Armitage, and Bill T. Jones. But he wanted to come to America to further his dance career, as well as to continue studying singing and acting, because he'd like to do musicals--road companies of Broadway shows are currently popular in Europe--commercials, music videos ("Maybe with Madonna"), and films. He mourns the demise of movie musicals but will be ready if they should return. "Yes, I can tap dance." He might even try out for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which he's seen on public television.

Last February De Block made the move to New York City, luckily found an apartment near Lincoln Center, and looked for a dance niche for himself that would both challenge his ability and gain him attention. He's savvy and ambitious, but without the often inevitable hard shell of ruthlessness. "These days if you want to become somebody, you have to do something really different," he says earnestly, with a matter-of-factness that reflects the axiom of his generation that to achieve success, proper marketing is everything Friends in Berlin were skeptical about his sojourn with the Trocks "because they think, `Oh, you're gonna be in drag, you're gonna make it funny, make the ballet [technique] bad,' but this is not [the case]. But since I send my reviews from The New York Times, they change their minds," he chuckles, vindicated.

Dancing with Les Ballets Trockadero wasn't his main reason for coming to the States, although he had seen their work on video and had been in contact regarding the possibility of performing with them. Ironically, it was at a performance of the St. Petersburg Male Ballet (Russia's men-in-tutus company) that he ran into the Trocks' associate director, Tory Dobrin, who arranged for him to take an audition class.

Dobrin was duly impressed with De Block's pointe work. Their schedules meshed, and De Block was able to join the Trocks for their New York City season last fall. After fulfilling some prior commitments in Berlin, he was to rejoin the company for its annual marathon of performances in Japan and other touring engagements.

Regarding his long-term commitment to the troupe, De Block has made it clear--"sort of"--that he is unwilling to be tied to one single company right now: "There are other people who also want me, and"--his inflection intensifies, reflecting his anxiety over the prospect of being caught between directors competing for his services--"they're scared that they're going to lose this or lose that, but that's their war, it's not mine! If I sign a contract with this company, and it says I'm not allowed to dance with that company . . . you know? So I have to be really clear and say, `We make an arrangement and you pay me by the performance [as a guest artist].'"

De Block quickly calms and, as if to diffuse any hint of a prima donna attitude, adds, "I will continue with the Trockaderos, because they have a fantastic reputation, and I had a beautiful beginning with them, so why give that up?"

Gus Solomons jr, a Dance Magazine New York City critic, is also a choreographer and the director of his own troupe, Solomons Company Dance.