Word: baryshnikov
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...roles, Baryshnikov fairly radiates daring. It has been suggested that he must believe in Laurence Olivier's dictum that nothing is really interesting onstage unless the performer is risking sudden death. It is a notion that amuses him: "It is not so important that the actor or dancer feel he is risking death as it is that the audience should feel he is." Much more important to Baryshnikov is the insistence that "the essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure." In that sentence, one feels, he comes closer to the heart of his appeal than...
...Baryshnikov's life echoes Gene Kelly's refrain, "Gotta Dance." It does not require much stimulation to get Misha's blood stirring. If anything, he has an excess of high-voltage energy. It has been there as long as he can remember. Both he and his mother, a dress fitter in Riga, Latvia, recognized it when he was a child, and they spent a great deal of time trying to channel it. "I was interested in everything," he says, "football, fencing, gymnastics. I even sang in the children's choir. I was also very...
...where he found the atmosphere of the old czarist capital intoxicating. As a dancer, he could not help visiting the Kirov school. There he happened to attend a class taught by the late Alexander Ivanovich Pushkin, a great master who coached Nureyev and Valery Panov. Not hoping for much, Baryshnikov approached Pushkin (no kin to the famed Russian poet) and said, "I would very much like to be your pupil." Pushkin felt his legs and body and asked him to jump up and down. Says Baryshnikov, "I was like a young goat knocking over tables and chairs." Pushkin quickly conducted...
...Baryshnikov. The school is very demanding, the students working from 9 in the morning to 10 at night. Misha studied fencing, makeup, French, Russian and Western literature as well as classical dancing. The Kirov is famous for its instruction in acting, particularly mime. Still, it is not solely or even largely this grounding that makes Baryshnikov grateful for his school years. What made them unique was Pushkin's presence...
...words. He was like somebody who stepped out of an icon. Pushkin had an ability to infect you with such a love for dance that you almost became obsessed with it. It is almost like a disease." Like all great teachers, he had an inspired ability to simplify. Says Baryshnikov: "He taught the most logical series of steps and movements that I have ever seen...