Mikhail Baryshnikov

He began his ballet studies in Riga in 1960, at the age of 12. In 1964, he entered the Vaganova School, in what was then Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Baryshnikov soon won the top prize in the junior division of the Varna International Ballet Competition. He joined the Mariinsky Ballet, which was then called the Kirov Ballet, in 1967, dancing the "Peasant" pas de deux in Giselle. Recognizing Baryshnikov's talent, in particular the strength of his stage presence and purity of his classical technique, several Soviet choreographers, including Oleg Vinogradov, Konstantin Sergeyev, Igor Tchernichov, and Leonid Jakobson, choreographed ballets for him. Baryshnikov made signature roles of Jakobson's 1969 virtuosic Vestris along with an intensely emotional Albrecht in Giselle. While still in the Soviet Union, he was called by New York Times critic Clive Barnes "the most perfect dancer I have ever seen."

On June 29, 1974, while on tour in Canada with the Bolshoi, Baryshnikov defected, requesting political asylum in Toronto, and joined the National Ballet of Canada for a brief time in a guest role. He also announced to the dance world that he would not go back to the USSR. He later stated that Christina Berlin, an American friend, helped engineer his defection during his 1970 tour of London. His first televised performance after coming out of temporary seclusion in Canada was with the National Ballet of Canada in La Sylphide. He then went on to the United States. In December 1975, he and his dance partner Natalia Makarova featured prominently in an episode of the BBC television series Arena.

From 1974 to 1978, Baryshnikov was a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (ABT), where he partnered with Gelsey Kirkland.

In the first two years after his defection, he danced for no fewer than 13 different choreographers, including Jerome Robbins, Glen Tetley, Alvin Ailey, and Twyla Tharp. "It doesn't matter if every ballet is a success or not," he told New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff in 1976, "The new experience gives me a lot." He cited his fascination with the ways Ailey mixed classical and modern technique and his initial discomfort when Tharp insisted he incorporate eccentric personal gestures in the dance.

Baryshnikov made his American television dancing debut in 1976, on the PBS program In Performance Live from Wolf Trap. The program is currently distributed on DVD by Kultur Video.

Baryshnikov performed in his first film role soon after arriving in New York. He portrayed the character Yuri Kopeikine, a famous Russian womanizing ballet dancer, in the 1977 film The Turning Point, for which he received an Oscar nomination. He co-starred with Gregory Hines and Isabella Rossellini in the 1985 film White Nights, choreographed by Twyla Tharp; and he was featured in the 1987 film Dancers. On television, in the last season of Sex and the City, he played a Russian artist, Aleksandr Petrovsky, who woos Carrie Bradshaw relentlessly and takes her to Paris. He co-starred in Company Business (1991) with Gene Hackman.

In 1978, he abandoned his freelance career to spend 18 months as a principal of the New York City Ballet, run by the legendary George Balanchine. "Mr. B," as Balanchine was known, rarely welcomed guest artists and had refused to work with both Nureyev and Makarova. Baryshnikov's decision to devote his full attentions to the New York company stunned the dance world. Balanchine never created a new work for Baryshnikov, though he did coach the young dancer in his distinctive style, and Baryshnikov triumphed in such signature roles as Apollo, The Prodigal Son, and Rubies. Jerome Robbins did, however, create Opus 19/The Dreamer for Baryshnikov and NYCB favorite Patricia McBride.

Baryshnikov performed with the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer for 15 months from 1978 to 1979. On July 8, 1978, he made his debut with George Balanchine's and Lincoln Kirstein's company at Saratoga Springs, appearing as Franz in Coppélia.

On October 12, 1979, he danced the role of the Poet in Balanchine's ballet, La Sonnambula with the City Ballet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. This was Baryshnikov's last performance with New York City Ballet due to a tendinitis and other injuries. His tenure there coincided with a period of ill health for Balanchine that followed an earlier heart attack and culminated in successful heart surgery in June 1979. Baryshnikov left the company to become the artistic director of American Ballet Theatre in September 1980, and take time off for his injuries.

Baryshnikov returned to the American Ballet Theatre in September 1980 as an artistic director, a position he held until 1989. He also performed as a dancer with ABT. Baryshnikov's fascination with the new has stood him in good stead. As he observed, "It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity and making an earnest attempt." Baryshnikov also toured with ballet and modern dance companies around the world for fifteen months. Several roles were created for him, including roles in Opus 19: The Dreamer (1979), by Jerome Robbins, Rhapsody (1980), by Frederick Ashton, and Other Dances with Natalia Makarova by Jerome Robbins.

On July 3, 1986, Baryshnikov became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Asked if he feels like an American, he said, "I like to think like I'm a man of the world. I feel totally Parisian in Paris. Totally Parisian. I have my place here, a lot of close friends and collaborators here, whom I can really feel like I can talk serious business with them. Human business, not 'business' business. Paris was always the dream of my childhood. We grew up on French art, like all Russians. America, United States, North America - it's a new country. Of course, if somebody would ask me to choose 'either Paris or New York,' I would choose New York. But spiritually, somehow, I love Europe."

Baryshnikov is a performer in avant-garde theater. His breakthrough performance in Broadway was back in 1989 when he played Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis, an adaption of Franz Kafka's novel by the same name. His debut earned him a Tony nomination.

From 1990 to 2002, Baryshnikov was artistic director of the White Oak Dance Project, a touring company he co-founded with Mark Morris. The White Oak Project was formed to create original work for older dancers. In a run ending just short of his 60th birthday in 2007, he appeared in a production of four short plays by Samuel Beckett staged by avant-garde director JoAnne Akalaitis.

Baryshnikov has performed in Israel three times: in 1996, when he appeared with the White Oak Dance Project at the Roman theater in Caesarea; in 2010, when he performed with Ana Laguna; and in 2011, when he starred in nine performances of "In Paris", a show after a short story by Ivan Bunin, at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv. In an interview to Haaretz newspaper in 2011, he expressed his opposition to artistic boycotts of Israel and described the enthusiasm for contemporary dance in Israel as astounding.

Baryshnikov was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Baryshnikov has had a long-term relationship with former ballerina Lisa Rinehart. They had three children together: Peter (born July 7, 1989), Anna (born May 22, 1992), and Sofia (born May 24, 1994). Though he told Larry King in 2002 that he did not "believe in marriage in the conventional way", he and Rinehart married in 2006.

In 2003, he won the Prix Benois de la Danse for lifetime achievement.

In 2004, he appeared in Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor And The Patient at New York City's Lincoln Center, and in 2007 in Beckett Shorts at New York Theatre Workshop.

In 2005, he launched the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York. For the duration of the 2006 Summer, Baryshnikov went on tour with Hell's Kitchen Dance, which was sponsored by the Baryshnikov Arts Center. Featuring works by Baryshnikov Arts Center residents Azsure Barton and Benjamin Millepied, the company toured the United States and Brazil. He has received three Honorary Degrees: on May 11, 2006, from New York University; on September 28, 2007, from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University; and on May 23, 2008, from Montclair State University. In late August 2007, Baryshnikov performed Mats Ek's Place (original Swedish title, Ställe) with Ana Laguna at Dansens Hus in Stockholm. In 2012, Baryshnikov received the Vilcek Prize in Dance.

On November 2, 2006, Baryshnikov and chef Alice Waters were featured on an episode of the Sundance Channel's original series Iconoclasts. The two have a long friendship. They discussed their lifestyles, sources of inspiration, and social projects that make them unique. During the program, Alice Waters visited Baryshnikov's Arts Center in New York City. The Hell's Kitchen Dance tour brought him to Berkeley to visit Alice Waters' restaurant Chez Panisse. On July 17, 2007, the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer featured a profile of Baryshnikov and his Arts Center. Baryshnikov appears, uncredited, in the 2014 film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit as Interior Minister Sorokin.

On April 11–21, 2012, Baryshnikov starred in a new play directed by Dmitry Krymov, titled In Paris. The play was presented in the Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, at the Broad Stage. His co-star was Anna Sinyakina.

In a continuation of his interest in modern dance, Baryshnikov appeared in a 2015 commercial for the clothing designer Rag & Bone along with street dance artist Lil Buck.

On April 21, 2015, The New York Times reported that Baryshnikov was scheduled to perform a reading of the Nobel Laureate poet Joseph Brodsky in Riga in 2015. The performance was called "Brodsky/Baryshnikov," was performed in the original Russian, and had its premiere on October 15, 2015. Its international tour began in Tel Aviv in January 2016 and it was later staged in New York City in March 2016, still in the original Russian. (Baryshnikov met Brodsky in 1974, soon after the poet had been forced by the Soviet authorities to leave his home country and had moved to the United States. They remained friends until Brodsky's death in 1996.)

On April 27, 2017, Baryshnikov was granted citizenship by the Republic of Latvia for extraordinary merits. The application to the Latvian parliament along with a letter from Baryshnikov in which he expressed his wish to become a citizen of what today constitutes his native country was submitted on December 21, 2016. He stated that the decision was based on memories of his first 16 years living in Latvia, which provided the basis for the rest of his life. "It was there that my exposure to the arts led me to discover my future destiny as a performer. Riga still serves as a place where I find artistic inspiration," Baryshnikov wrote in the letter to the Latvian parliament.

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Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov is hailed as one of the greatest ballet dancers of the 20th century. He was also nominated for an Oscar for The Turning P...