Word: baryshnikov
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...improbably sustained leaps-high, light, the leg beats blurring precision-he transcends the limits of physique and, it sometimes seems, those of gravity itself. If one goes by the gasps in the theater or the ecstasies of the critics, such moments turn Mikhail Baryshnikov, if not into a minor god, then into a major sorcerer...
...audiences at A.B.T.'s spring season in Washington, D.C. can see this week, Baryshnikov at 27 ranks with these dancers. It is less than a year since he broke away from a Soviet touring company in Toronto, but the public has already made him a superstar and calls him by his nickname. To discourage long lines last winter, a ticket outlet in Manhattan put up a sign saying "Misha tickets all sold...
...Baryshnikov (pronounced Ba-rish-ni-koff) is a one-man theatrical event that nearly defies summary. He is an unbelievable technician with invisible technique. Most dancers, even the great ones, make obvious preliminaries to leaps. He simply floats into confounding feats of acrobatics and then comes to still, collected repose. He forces the eye into a double take: did that man actually do that just now? Dance Critic Walter Terry says that "Baryshnikov is probably the most dazzling virtuoso we have seen. He is more spectacular in sheer technique than any other male dancer. What he actually does...
...Baryshnikov is a fine actor as well. He takes open, youthful joy in being onstage, while respecting what he calls "the sensitive weave" of the work's overall design. His Albrecht in Giselle, for example, is a coltish kid in love with the idea of love, touchingly unable to comprehend that, as a nobleman, he just cannot have this terrific peasant girl. He excels at shrewd, straightforward comedy. In Frederick Ashton's Les Patineurs, the dancers appear to be on ice skates. Misha seems about to fall over backward at times-a mime performance that Marcel Marceau might...
...dissident artists, left the Soviet Union in May with his wife, Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. The maestro's troubles seemed almost distant, however, as he guided an exuberant National Symphony Orchestra through an evening of Tchaikovsky for an audience that included another recent arrival from the U.S.S.R., Dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. It was a rare evening. Said Washington Star-News Critic Irving Lowens: "In terms of enthusiasm and adulation aroused, about the only thing the concert can be compared to is the Second Coming...