He selects a brush. Staring back from the mirror, blasted by hot white light, is the face Paul Ghiselin will leave behind for the night. He dips the brush into a jar.

Soon, the hard features reflected before him will recede behind a painted veil of femininity. The man who arrived in the dressing room will grace the stage as Ida Nevasayneva, transformed by layers of makeup and countless hours of rehearsal.

“You put on your dream face,” Ghiselin said. “The ideal ballerina has big eyes, plump lips and a long neck. I have the neck, but the rest is illusion.”

As ballet master of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a touring all-male company performing classical ballets in tutus, Ghiselin reigns over the studio where the Trocks practice their roles en pointe. But after more than 15 years with the company, he’s also a master at sculpting high cheekbones and arched eyebrows into a freshly shaven male face. That is, with one exception. “If only I can get the … eyeliner straight,” he said. “It takes a bit of work.”

The Trocks model themselves after the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, an old-world Russian company that brought classical repertoire to Middle America in the mid-20th century. Just as Wagner’s breast-plated Brunhilde conjures the image of an opera diva, the Ballet Russe dancers define the term prima ballerina in the cultural lexicon.

They married a meticulous European technique with proud, flamboyant personalities. But as much as the Trocks pay homage to the original Monte Carlo company, these men are equally emphatic about what sets them apart from ballerinas: that they are, in fact, men.

“There is no mistaking that we are doing a character,” said Tory Dobrin, the company’s artistic director. “We want the audience to know that we’re men. We’re trying to be like Hulk Hogan in a tutu.”

Although the image of a 300-pound wrestler in pink tights isn’t far removed from reality, the intended effect is comedy, which has been the Trocks’ shtick since it began in 1974. When Dobrin joined as a dancer in 1980, the company relied more on the demand to see laughable drag ballet than on the idea of men genuinely dancing female roles. Back then, the men caked on white foundation, huge fake eyelashes and heavily rouged cheeks.

Today, the dancing has evolved to the point where they match and sometimes rival female ballerinas. The Trocks have grown from a fringe artistic enterprise rooted in New York’s gay drag theater to a respected mainstream ballet genre in demand worldwide. The Japanese are particularly enthusiastic fans.

“The goal is to do the best possible show,” Dobrin said. “We’re dancing like ourselves. If the audience forgets we’re men, then that’s great because they’ve gotten lost in the dance.”

As the dancing has evolved, thanks to more boys openly learning pointe, so too has the aesthetic. Charleston native Robert Carter joined the company at the age of 20 in 1995, just as the troupe began to move away from clownish makeup.

Carter was a part of the wave of new members with a taste for a more refined, glamorous female face. Working with products from Ben Nye, a premier line of stage makeup, Carter creates elaborate confections with brilliantly colored eye shadows, which he changes for every performance.

What sets Carter apart, aside from his status as the company’s prima ballerina assoluta, the highest title for a dancer, is that he’s a black ballerina in a blonde wig worthy of a Swedish supermodel. Carter buys a new wig every other year from a shop in New York, but always in synthetic platinum and parted down the middle.

“My first ballet partner growing up was blonde,” he explained. “She was killed by a drunk driver the night before her senior prom. That affected me, so that’s my homage to her.”

The goal may be to produce laughter, but like most comedians, the Trocks take their subject seriously. Despite insisting that they aren’t trying to be women, the dancers exist on the stage sincerely as their characters. Under the lights, Robert Carter gives way to Olga Supphozova. And there are dimensions to that existence that the audience will never see.

“From far away, you get a general idea of a tutu’s glimmer and color,” said Christopher Vergara, the Trocks’ costume coordinator. “But up close, it’s so intricate. You see the handwork, the rhinestones, the beading. All that detail is not intended for the audience. You do it for the dancer.”

With their progression toward a more serious aesthetic, the Trocks have waded deeper into gender ambiguity. Where the original company members declared their masculinity with hairy chests and messy footwork, today’s troupe conjures a technically proficient, hyper-feminine representation of a ballerina. Paul Ghiselin said a dancer’s own identity can get caught between the blurred lines.

“On stage, you’re embodying the female movement,” he said. “You’re honoring the traditions that came before, but you’re also staying true to yourself. You’re stuck in the middle.”

And sometimes, he said, the difficulty in portraying a woman is simply physical.

“Have you ever shaved your legs? It’s horrible.”