Word: misha
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...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 envy. Perhaps his greatest tour de force so far is Roland Petit's Le Jeune Homme et la Mart. The ballet is a cartoon of existential angst, but, leaping over bed, chair and table...
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...
...school was attached to a conservatory, and the musical atmosphere was different from anything that Misha had ever known. "By the end of the year, it was difficult to tear me away. All my other activities became secondary, then disappeared. I would leave for school in the morning and not return until night...
...Misha did have to spend the summer awaiting final word. He tried to pass the time fishing, a sport he still loves, but inwardly he agonized. "It would have been shattering if I had not been accepted. Already I was living the life of the Kirov. Seeing Leningrad and the school was like an electrifying shock. I could not imagine living apart from it." Not knowing how to work out alone, he did his best to "prepare myself morally" for the work that he hoped he would soon be doing. He is a trifle vague as to what this means...
...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...