Thursday, December 1, 2022

A Question on Jeopardy about Mikhail Baryshnikov

Are you a Jeopardy Fan? I am and the recent Tournament Of Champions Series prompted me to write this post. 

One of the Questions on Jeopardy-Person who escaped from the Russian KGB after a performance in Toronto, Canada?

Analysis of His Dancing Abilities-


I was watching Jeopardy several months ago. One of the question: who was the person who run away(escaped) after a stage performance in Toronto pursued by the Russian KGB. The answer was Mikhail Baryshnikov.   This aroused my interest and thus this article on this most celebrated ballet dancer in the world( from Wikipedia).

" On June 29, 1974, in Toronto while on tour with the Bolshoi, Baryshnikov defected, requesting political asylum in Canada. He then joined the National Ballet of Canada for a brief time in a guest role. He also announced that he would not return to the USSR. He later said that Christina Berlin, an American friend, helped engineer his defection during his 1970 tour of London".

Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov (Russian: Михаи́л Никола́евич Бары́шников, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf]; Latvian: Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Soviet Latvian-born Russian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. He was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently became a noted dance director.

Born in Riga, Latvian SSR, Baryshnikov had a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad before defecting to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in Western dance. After dancing with American Ballet Theatre, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer for one season to learn George Balanchine's neoclassical Russian style of movement. He then returned to the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director. Baryshnikov has spearheaded many of his own artistic projects and has been associated in particular with promoting modern dance, premiering dozens of new works, including many of his own. His success as a dramatic actor on stage, cinema and television has helped him become probably the most widely recognized contemporary ballet dancer. Baryshnikov has never returned to Russia since his 1974 defection and has been a naturalized citizen of the United States since 1986. In 2017, the Republic of Latvia granted Baryshnikov citizenship for extraordinary merits.

In 1977, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Yuri Kopeikine in the film The Turning Point. He starred in the movie White Nights with Gregory Hines, Helen Mirren, and Isabella Rossellini, and had a recurring role in the last season of the television series Sex and the City.

For Complete details on his biography visit the link below:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Baryshnikov

 


Meanwhile enjoy these photos of my one of my house plants in bloom and my orchids




If you love Ballet, joined the FB group Passion ballet. Here's also a list of popular movies about Ballet.

https://dancebibles.com/ballet-movies/

 

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