Through the Eyes of a Dancer: Selected Writings

Masters of Surprise: Baryshnikov and Astaire

| 45 Masters of Surprise: Baryshnikov and Astaire SoHo Weekly News, September 8, 1977 There is no way I could have guessed that Mikhail Baryshnikov would become more than a superstar ballet dancer. As artistic director of American Ballet Theatre, he led that magnificent company for a decade; he started his own adventurous modern dance company (White Oak Dance Project); and he created his own presenting space, Baryshnikov Arts Center, in midtown. At this writing, he still performs internationally, either as a modern dancer or as an actor in plays he produces (oh, and there was a whole season of Sex and the City). His two studios and a theater in BAC are buzzing with activity, including generous residencies to promising dance artists and other groups. Nor would I have guessed that our worlds would overlap at all. I attend performances at BAC often; I’ve done a photo shoot with Misha; and he has graciously presented an award at a Dance Magazine event. So it’s a bit embarrassing to see how narrowly I viewed this artist who is now such a mover and shaker. However, I stick to my thesis that there was something about his dancing that called to mind Fred Astaire.While working on this story, I enjoyed mentally jumping across barriers between Hollywood and the Metropolitan Opera House. As I have said, I was my own editor at the SoHo News. There was no one to tell me to include a “nut graph” that explains what you will do in the story, or to tell me not to refer to two different books in the opening paragraph. I was on my own, so it sometimes reads as free association. When Fred Astaire was starting out in vaudeville, his sister Adele was the better half of their act. According to Arlene Croce’s The Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Book, he opted for aloofness over insecurity. Some observers (Marshall and Jean Stearns in their book Jazz Dance) thought his manner projected the sentiment, “Okay, Adele’s the star, so I’ll help her out, but I’m bored to death.” This “boredom” developed into a look of supreme confidence, of never trying for something he couldn’t have. Which is also the feeling I get from watching Mikhail Baryshnikov. Although Baryshnikov could never be described as bored looking, he is certainly not over-eager onstage. These two performers have a miraculous self containment that I find irresistible. At the same time that we are convinced that the dancer is doing exactly the right thing at the right time (technically and philosophically) we also see that he is not doing it in order to please us. It can be pleasantly maddening. 46 | Through the Eyes of a Dancer A mAtter oF Weight Although Baryshnikov and Astaire don’t look alike, two qualities distinguish them from other dancers and put them in a class of their own: They are a physical quality of liquidness and a mastery of surprise.The liquidness comes from a release of all tensions (very modern) and the weight dropped low. Their most notable colleagues, respectively Rudolf Nureyev and Gene Kelly, carry their weight higher—up around the shoulders and chest—giving the whole body a “meaningful” look. With my two favorites, no one part Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth in You’ll Never Get Rich, 1941. (Courtesy Dance Magazine Archives) The Seventies | 47 of the body takes on exaggerated tension, so the energy flows unstopped and the dancer is just as ready to drop into the floor as to bound into the air. The feeling of center is not particularly visible. You know Baryshnikov must be stronglycentered because he can do all those exhilarating leaps, but he doesn’t let you see how he holds himself together. He simply doesn’t subscribe to the excessive verticality that marks (or mars) other ballet dancers. No other classical dancer would or could dare effect the looseness that he experiments with. In the production of Giselle on television a few months ago, as Albrecht wild-with-grief-over-Giselle, he finished off a rash of pirouettes by letting his head drop back while he was still turning with his leg extended to the side. (It looked as if he were on the verge of swooning, not unlike the melting feeling Fred has when he’s about to join Ginger. Both these men know how to look...