Sergei Polunin quits ballet for Hollywood

Two years after joining Moscow's Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre under the protective wing if Igor Zelensky, Sergei Polunin is on the move again. According to RIA Novosti he has left for Hollywood.

Ara Karapetian, the theatre's General Manager, said that,

Sergei has decided to leave the ballet and pursue an acting career. He went to Hollywood, where he will attend an acting school. At 25, Sergei Polunin has achieved everything a dancer can dream about and has decided to start a new life.

Which is a bizarre statement to make considering that much of his fame comes from his offstage antics rather than his performances which, while extraordinarily promising, still had a way to go before being fully-rounded and mature emotionally and, sometimes, technically. Polunin has expressed his feelings about being trapped by the discipline of the ballet world and his desire to be rich and famous; maybe he sees a successful acting career as a way to achieve that. Acting, however, requires discipline too, and if film acting – where the money is – is what Polunin's after, then showing up on time is vital; even Marilyn Monroe was cast aside after a while, and she was a huge box-office star.

As Polunin told the AFP a year ago, Mickey Rourke and Russell Crowe are two of his favourite actors, and certainly both actors would seem to have something in common with Polunin as all three have had the ‘bad boy' tag applied to them and they all have a passion for tattoos. Polunin met Rourke in April of this year and it is said that they intend making a film together, though nothing about the subject is known. Maybe it can be assumed that he will need a long period away from ballet to prepare and film this project and that is why he and the Stanislavsky have parted ways?

If something goes wrong or he changes his mind and wants to come back again to the ballet, the door of the Musical Theatre of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko is always open for him.

added Karapetian generously.

In an interview, just last year, with Izves­tia, Polunin stated,

It seems crazy now, but at 18 I thought that 26 was a good age to stop. Bal­let hurts. Up until the age of 32 years it's fun, and the body is able to recover, though after 28 you need to work harder to keep your­self in good shape. For a mature dan­cer, it's difficult.

When asked what he would do if at 26 he decided to stop dancing, he said,

I don't know what else I can do. If I can cross that line then maybe I'll dance to the end, prov­ing that even a 50-year-old can per­form at a high level.

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.