Word: baryshnikov
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...just eleven years ago that Mikhail Baryshnikov slipped away from a touring troupe of Soviet dancers in Canada for a new life in the West. He was instantly acclaimed as a once-in-a-lifetime performer of genius. Who could miss his radiant classicism, his ardent romantic style, his deportment as a diffident young god? Never presenting himself on- or off-stage as "a star," he had a solitary air that his huge blue eyes only underscored. In fact he was starting out with only schoolboy French, no English, no clear idea of where to settle or which dance company...
...Baryshnikov left the cosseted life at Leningrad's Kirov Ballet, where artistic challenges were rare and cultural politics strangulating. "I didn't have the patience, and I'm not smart enough," he says. "I love that country and those people, but I am an individualist, and there it is a crime...
...freedom means choice, then Baryshnikov reveled in it, pursuing myriad options. He has worked with a dozen or so choreographers. With Twyla Tharp's brilliant Push Comes to Shove (1976), his flair for comedy burst out. In 1977 he became a Hollywood star, playing a famous dancer in The Turning Point. (Another film, White Nights, will be released at Christmas.) The lorn Petrouchka began to seem like a Slavic Jimmy Cagney...
Home turned out to be New York City, a haven for someone with Baryshnikov's quick, efficient intelligence. "It's mesmerizing to be here," he says. "The speed, every day's information, even the anger of the place." When he became artistic director at A.B.T. nearly five years ago, he dove into a Sargasso Sea of arts administration and emergency fund raising. He has survived and has strengthened the troupe. "It's been tough but worth it," he says. "I've seen all the existing companies, including the Russian ones, and I am very proud...
...deal to buy seven television stations in the U.S., announced in May that he would become a U.S. citizen. The roster of Soviet immigrants includes not only the black-garbed babushkas huddled over their knitting in Brooklyn's Little Odessa but such artists as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Mikhail Baryshnikov...