Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov, nicknamed "Misha", is a Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor born in the Soviet Union, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers in history. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in western dance. After freelancing with many companies, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer to learn George Balanchine's style of movement...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDancer
Date of Birth27 January 1948
CityRiga, Latvia
CountryUnited States of America
I'm an impatient person in many respects. I like to put myself in uncomfortable situations. It forces me to deliver.
No matter what I try to do or explore, my Kirov training, my expertise, and my background call me to return to dancing after all, because that's my real vocation, and I have to serve it.
The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know.
You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreographer or a dancer, and there's an informative, clear image of a dancer. This is, in my view, not an interesting photograph.
I was kind of amused, and shocked. At first I was watching it with my children. Then I said 'Children, OUT!
I can see one guy doing what we call an 'air flare' ... and I'll see 30 other individuals do the same move in a competition. Not one of those b-boys did anything to try to twist it and make it their own.
I was never like, "collect, collect," like people who go to auctions. I never spent a serious amount of time because I don't have any time!
I gave away a lot of works for benefits and then people would also give me back.
What people will do to get away from boredom!
I always had a kind of strange relationship with New York City, with total love affair in the beginning then retreat during the kind of conservatives of politics and real estate and business came, and then I am again kind of fighting for the justice to the city, to open the city for the artists.
You invest into the future, and that's how young people become human in best sense of it - through the great experience of listening a Müller symphony or to see a great play by Tennessee Williams, experience something in a ballet, in a film.
A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.
You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age.
Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great.