Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov (born January 28, 1948) is a famous Russian dancer, choreographer, and actor.

He remembered having liked ballet, but thinking it was difficult to understand he paid no particular attention to it. His mother, however, was very fond of it, and when he was twelve she enrolled him in School of the Theatre Opera Ballet in Riga. He also engaged in academic pursuits there. He learned to speak French fluently and for a while aspired to be a concert pianist. In time, he became enamorated with dance over piano, and, as a result of his own interest and his success in school presentations, he decided to follow a career as a dancer.

In 1963, during a visit to Leningrad, he applied to the famous Vaganova Ballet Academy. He was admitted and joined the class of Aleksandr Pushkin, who had earlier trained Rudolf Nureyev.

Upon completing his studies, in 1966, he joined Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet. Despite tradition, he did not first serve as a apprentice in the corps de ballet, but made his professional debut as a soloist, in Giselle. That same year he won the very prestigious gold medal at the Varna, Bulgaria, international ballet competition. [1] Upon returning to Leningrad, he continued his pattern of success. After only two years as a professional, he was given his first leading role in Oleg Vinograd’s Gorianka, a part written specifically for Baryshnikov. That same year, he received the gold medal at the first international ballet competition in Moscow and also the prestigious Nijinsky Award. He became the youngest dancer to receive the State Award for Merit of the U.S.S.R., While in Russia, he partnered with Irina Kolpakova, whom many considered the greatest living classical ballerina, in such ballets as Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, Giselle, Coppélia, Flames of Paris, and Don Quixote, and he created roles in Vestris (1969), in which he portrayed Auguste Vestris, and Creation of the World (1971), a new satirical religious opera in which Baryshnikov played Adam to Kolpakova’s Eve. However, at this time, his existing desire to work with more Western choreographers, as well as his concerns about what he saw as the decline of the Kirov Ballet, led to an increased restlessness in him.

While touring Canada with the Bolshoi Ballet in 1974, Baryshnikov defected, requesting political asylum in Toronto. He later stated that Christina Berlin, an American friend of his, helped engineer his defection during his 1970 tour of London. His first performance after coming out of temporary seclusion in Canada was with the National Ballet of Canada in a televised version of La Sylphide. He then went on to the United States. [2]

From 1974 to 1979, he was principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), where he partnered with Gelsey Kirkland. He also worked with the New York City Ballet, with George Balanchine. He also toured with ballet and modern dance companies around the world for fifteen months. Several roles were created for him, including roles in Opus (1971) and The Dreamer (1979), by Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, Rhapsody (1980), by Balanchine and Frederick Ashton, and Other Dances (with Natalia Makarova) by Sir Antony Tudor. He returned to ABT in 1980 as dancer and artistic director, a position he held for a decade. On July 3, 1986, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. From 1990 to 2002, Baryshnikov was artistic director of the White Oak Dance Project, a touring company he co-founded with Mark Morris.

Baryshnikov was a unique dancer in many ways. He was short and thus had to work hard to prove his suitability for roles such as Siegfried in Swan Lake where a taller, more noble bearing was expected³. His dancing was renowned for its textbook form, technical brilliance, and emotional detachment.

He was a recipient of Kennedy Center Honors in 2000. As of 2004, he is actively involved in the establishment of the Baryshnikov Arts Center in a new performing arts complex in New York City.