Thank you so much for the article about such a significant artist and very intelligent man. In The Turning Point he was at the peak of his abilities, prior to his injury. He could fly without wings with his powerful jumps. White Nights was also an interesting movie.
I saw him dance when I was a child. My parents had season tickets to the Fox Theatre, and he came through Atlanta on tour. I was in the fourth grade so this had to be... 1988? I can still remember watching him fly across that stage (which is pretty impressive, since I don't remember whole chunks of my childhood.) I was too young to understand the political and cultural weight of the beauty of his dance.
Today, he'd have been carted away by ICE and locked up in a hellhole somewhere in the desert. You have to wonder how many Baryshnikovs the US won't attract now because the whole world is afraid to seek asylum there.
it was so grateful to have seen him in the 90s. He had his own little dance troop together and was touring the world. His last run for performances. It wasn't necessarily ballet. It was an amalgam of different types of dancing and, yes, he still soared through the air. Seemingly suspended. sigh
Someone on your FB post commented that they didn’t know he was Latvian, and I replied that he is ethnically Russian. Now she thinks I'm a bot. Pedantic, sure, but not a bot. She's trying to report me for it too 🙄
He has a theater connection here in my town, and was coordinating a performance here, and he sat next to us in the audience. I thought he looked familiar, and then I realized who he was! He was so polite, we had to stand up to let him get to his seat, as one does, my husband used a cane at that point, and he was so careful about not having him have to stand, and slipped by so carefully.
Thank you so much for the article about such a significant artist and very intelligent man. In The Turning Point he was at the peak of his abilities, prior to his injury. He could fly without wings with his powerful jumps. White Nights was also an interesting movie.
I still love White Nights! I have been lucky enough to travel to Russia and experience them.
I saw him dance when I was a child. My parents had season tickets to the Fox Theatre, and he came through Atlanta on tour. I was in the fourth grade so this had to be... 1988? I can still remember watching him fly across that stage (which is pretty impressive, since I don't remember whole chunks of my childhood.) I was too young to understand the political and cultural weight of the beauty of his dance.
Art imitates life - I can see that scene in a movie where our hero is almost away and ... not the fans!! Dammit!
Today, he'd have been carted away by ICE and locked up in a hellhole somewhere in the desert. You have to wonder how many Baryshnikovs the US won't attract now because the whole world is afraid to seek asylum there.
😢😭
it was so grateful to have seen him in the 90s. He had his own little dance troop together and was touring the world. His last run for performances. It wasn't necessarily ballet. It was an amalgam of different types of dancing and, yes, he still soared through the air. Seemingly suspended. sigh
Thanks for this. That was moving for people in all walks of life here in America.
I really enjoyed reading this. There were so many talented people from the Soviet era but we didn’t hear about them because of the censorship. I enjoyed this one as well, https://substack.com/@coolpeopleweekly/note/c-285178457?r=8mz1it&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Someone on your FB post commented that they didn’t know he was Latvian, and I replied that he is ethnically Russian. Now she thinks I'm a bot. Pedantic, sure, but not a bot. She's trying to report me for it too 🙄
He has a theater connection here in my town, and was coordinating a performance here, and he sat next to us in the audience. I thought he looked familiar, and then I realized who he was! He was so polite, we had to stand up to let him get to his seat, as one does, my husband used a cane at that point, and he was so careful about not having him have to stand, and slipped by so carefully.