IT’S a disaster for a ballet dancer to be too tall (“sorry, it’s the showbiz chorus line for you”), but what if your problem is the opposite?

“I am a very small, a very petite person,” Victor Trevino tells “CityNews”.

Trevino is the founder, director and lead dancer of Ballet Elouelle, coming to Canberra soon with “Men in Pink Tights” and he couldn’t be happier about being here.

Australia, you see, is responsible for the very existence of his troupe.

“Men in Pink Tights” is a curious mixture of classical ballet and comedy. It features big men, small men, men with moustaches, clean-shaven men in costumes costing about $3 million, but, more importantly, who are top dancers.

Boasting “a combination of pyrotechnics and comedy,” they’ll give us bits of “Spartacus”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “The Dying Swan” and their big showstopper, “Minkus Fair”.

It’s funny, but it’s real dance. Trevino was raised as a proper classical dancer in Florida, later joining Ballet Florida. But his height caught up with him.

“After two years, my director says to me, ‘you’re really small, you might like to explore other options’.”

After that hint, he sent off his height and weight details to Les Ballets Trokadero de Monte Carlo (the “Trocks”, also coming here) in New York and was immediately hired to dance featured roles. He stayed for 10 years, until in 1996, he was persuaded by a Japanese producer to form his own company, Les Ballets Grandiva, travelling shows such as “Men in Tutus” around the world and exhausting himself in the process.

“By 2009 I thought I’d reached the end of my career,” he explains, “but then an Australian producer said to me ‘we’d love to have you come back,’ so here I am… I am indebted to Australia.”

Back home in Florida, he phoned up dancers he knew, found some new faces and new bodies, “and voilà, Les Ballets Eloelle had arrived”.

With his eyes on international touring, Trevino prefers to take talented, qualified dancers and bring out their comedic talents.

“I want it to be a really finished show, not just guys acting silly on stage,” he says.

Like Meryl Tankard and Graeme Murphy, he likes non-traditional bodies.

“Just by using very masculine men you achieve a ludicrous effect… it gives a lot of personality to the work,” he says.

Then again, if you choose fragile men, people say: “Is that really a guy?” That’s where the comedic element comes in.

“I’m not very interested in clones on stage…16 swans looking and moving exactly the same has its place, but it’s not for me.”

 “Men in Pink Tights”, Canberra Theatre, May 4-5, bookings to 6275 2700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au