Mikhail Baryshnikov on boycotts, ballet, ‘Black Swan’, Studio 54, ‘Sex and the City’, contemporary dance and being a sex symbol

As “In Paris” arrives in Tel Aviv for nine performances,  Mikhail Baryshnikov talked to Elad Samorzik of Haaretz:

On age and repertoire

“Listen, I am 63 years-old. It depends what you're dancing. The piece we did with Anna Laguna we played ourselves, our age. We are not dancing ‘Romeo and Juliet.' You know, pas de deux. Last year Mats Ek did a piece for me and Niklas Ek, his brother, who was a famous dancer of the choreographer Maurice Bejart and worked with James Thierree. It was a fascinating piece, and he's much older than me – closer to 70 – and we did the piece together, very difficult. And then we did a show with Mats himself dancing.

“I'm not dancing in white tights, after all. I'm dancing in street shoes and in jeans sometimes. It's called dance, too. There are all kinds of movement – look at artists in tango or flamenco or butoh or hula. People dance at any age. Like, okay you make love – you dance; you eat – you dance. One day you stop, because of different reasons, because you got crippled, or you lost interest, or you can't produce good work. Then you make objective decisions. But I'm still interested, and I'm interested in work, and people and collaborators.”

On boycotting Israel

“I am worried about the situation in the Middle East, but I think boycotts of the arts – this is the wrong way to go. It has nothing to do with my work. I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure. If I'll be invited, I'll be there. Maybe then I'll be boycotted in Tel Aviv. No, but I'm open, I'm not taking one side by any means.”

On Russian director and set designer Dmitry Krymov

“I knew him socially. He said, ‘I think I have an idea for a play, are you interested?' I knew the writer, of course [Ivan Bunin, the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1933], because he's one of the best Russian writers of the last century. He was an immigrant writer. We didn't study his work in school, for obvious reasons. He was really a very anti-Soviet writer, although he was not playing politics – his stories are novels and romance. There is never any open political fight against Moscow, so to speak.”

“Krymov chose me because I was the same age as the character, and there are similarities between this character and my situation. I met those people when I came the first time to Paris. You know, generals and colonels, nobility, who came to my performances and introduced themselves, and I had conversations with them.”

On booing of the play

“Well I knew it would be controversial. I was booed a few times in Paris, during my first performance with Roland Petit. He did a beautiful performance of ‘The Queen of Spades'. I don't pay attention. Paris is famous for it. It's a bit of snobbery, it's a tradition here. You have to show that you are not everybody. Because you are the independent thinker, ‘Oh, I went to the Sorbonne, this means I know better.' Okay.”

On investing $250,000 of his own money in the project

“I did this out of fun. I'll never get my money back. This is just out of love.”

On defecting

“A tremolo, a heartbeat. You understand you're starting a new life. It's not because you're scared about anything. It is the most serious decision of your life. And it is a bit embarrassing also. You always kind of admire people who fight openly. That's why I hate the word ‘defection.' It's like [a situation in which there are] two armies and somebody defects. I've always said, ‘I am a selector, I am not defector' – the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate ‘defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word.”

On classical ballet today

“I go to see City Ballet because it's kind of my alma mater … When my children were young I took them to see ‘Sleeping Beauty', ‘Nutcracker', ‘Giselle' and ‘Swan Lake,' but then they passed that age. If something comes from the Paris Opera or some unusual dancer, then I'll go see it. I am interested but en passant. I'll go to see some play or a music concert or cinema, something new.”

On arts funding

The government does not spend money on educating young people in the arts because from its perspective there are more challenging things to do, and the National Endowment [for the Arts] is not big enough, either. A country like Belgium, or socialist countries in central Europe spend more money on art education than the United States, which is a really puzzling thought. But we have poverty and a lot of social problems that President Obama has to deal with, and we're all with him. We understand that, I hope he will win [a second term]. I know he is not very popular in your country, but I think wrongly so, I think he is a great man and I am really very much his supporter. And Hillary Clinton too, I think she's a dynamite woman. She's an old friend … I was supporting her for the presidency, but then she lost, and of course I switched to Obama, but I'm glad she took this job.”

On “Sex and the City”

“My serious friends in Russia and elsewhere said, ‘Why are you doing this?' It was just a very curious challenge. You know, because the actresses were wonderful. On television you have to work very fast; they're changing texts at the last second, you have to improvise in front of the camera. It's a great school of professionalism. And when all these actors live together for six years and do series and series, just like that, for them it's like they arrive, it's in character. For me it was harder, but I'm glad I did it.”

On the film “Black Swan”

“I didn't like it, but you know it's a kitsch kind of … it's kind of a cult film. It's nothing to do with any reality. Natalie [Portman] is lovely, she is a good actress, but it's not serious.”

On contemporary dance in Israel

“The enthusiasm about contemporary dance in Israel, it's astonishing. It's much more than in New York. I was astounded. You walk around Suzanne Dellal [theatre] and there are hundreds of dancers and choreographers, and it's so beautiful. Not every work is maybe so interesting, but they're trying. They're bringing choreographers from Europe – from Germany, and England, and France and the United States – and it's kind of starting … but what's great is that there's support, and this enthusiasm, festivals. We never have anything like that, of that sort, of that kind of energy, enthusiasm.”

On the Batsheva Dance Company and its director, Ohad Naharin

[He] attracts some of the best dancers in the world, that's for sure. This group is … my jaw is on the floor. I never saw the combination of that kind of beauty and energy and technique.

Dancers go instinctively to something challenging and interesting. It's DV8 or Pina Bausch or it's Billy Forsyth. It comes from admiration of the choreographer, ethics of the work, challenging difficult life like in Israel. You know, they are in ensemble first, and not in the main company. I talked to the dancers – it's a horrific schedule. They go to the army for the first couple of years. To go through this kind of routine, then you could take anything after that. From that it's easier, but to get there …”

On being a choreographer

“Choreography, it's a special talent. Not every dancer choreographs. I had the privilege to work with the best choreographers who ever lived, from Martha Graham to Merce Cunningham to Balanchine to Robbins to Mark Morris, to Mats Ek. Why should I go and make a mediocre ballet?

“I staged some of my productions of 19th-century classics when I was running the Ballet Theater, some better, some worse, but I'm not a choreographer. I like to collaborate with people, and to have people use me as a tool for their work. You already sleep not so well when you're a dancer; can you imagine being a director or choreographer? No, life is too short, it's too late. Although, I could have probably choreographed a decent work. But it's like being a poet: You could rhyme a few poems, but it's not necessary for you to be a poet. Or just because you improvise a little bit on the keyboard, doesn't mean that you'll be a composer. You know, it's a special talent you have to be born with it. You have to know from a tender age who you are. I was a dancer.”

On his career

“I was lucky to be in the right places at the right times with the right people. That's the story of my life. It's the truth. I was lucky with people. If there's any advice I give to young artists, it's to be totally unselfish in the first part of your life and give yourself to other people. It will return, you know, people who come and help you toward the end of your life. And it happened to me.”

On disliking being called a sex symbol

I am not a sex symbol. It's just what people made out of me. It's a kind of illusion from the stage, maybe. People who know me, it has nothing to do with reality. I am not a skirt chaser, you know, I am not a sex maniac. I am not nice-looking, I am not tall, I am not a hero by any means. And I am not a macho kind of a guy, so what's this sex all about?”

On enthusiasm

“Well, I always say that in the morning I try to challenge myself not to get bored with myself, that I want to surprise myself. But it has to be not to get too bored or very skeptical about everything, very passive and cynical. And if I think that way, it gives me energy and intellectual curiosity. You have to have really interesting friends who can challenge you. You know, if you do something not kosher, you have to hear from them, and say it when they do something not right. That, I think, that's my motto in life. I've always had really wonderful friends, in Russia and outside of Russia, and that [allows me to maintain] my life ethics. Clean life ethics. And that reflects then on stage.”

On ageing

I'm afraid of death like everybody else. I am not religious person, I don't practice. I was christened, and I am Russian Orthodox, but I am agnostic. Let's say, you know, I'm not an atheist, but I don't practice. I like to see rituals – the choreography of it and the spirit and beauty of it. But you never know. You never know what might happen.”

On partying at Studio 54

I was there maybe three times altogether. But when you're there, okay so it's Mick Jagger there, or somebody else, or this and that, of course it's all over the press and then ‘Oh, okay he's sleeping there, practically!' Seriously, I was there with Martha Graham, twice, and Andy Warhol and Liza [Minnelli] and Mick Jagger and those people, because at that time everybody was there. But how could I be there until 6 o'clock in the morning when I had to be at 10 o'clock in the class, at dance class. No, of course not! Just a few times.”

On feeling American

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.”

via Haaretz Daily Newspaper 

Photo: By Hardrocker01 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.