Biography rudolf nureyev
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Nureyev, photographed by Richard Avedon in Paris, in 1961, the year that the Kirov star defected from the Soviet Union.© 2007 THE RICHARD AVEDON FOUNDATION
If ever there was an artist who invited the retributive sort of biography that is in mode these days, it is Rudolf Nureyev. Nureyev, as a friend of his put it, did things that are “absolutely out of our habits.” He dropped ballerinas on the floor, threw dinner plates at people, and blew his nose on hotel towels. He repaid his greatest benefactor by going to bed with the man’s wife. But Julie Kavanagh, in her “Nureyev: The Life” (Pantheon; $37.50), doesn’t go for the bait. Nureyev may have behaved badly, she says, but he was bigger than that.
Nureyev was born in 1938, and, like most Soviet citizens who didn’t starve to death in the years that followed, he almost did. He grew up in Ufa, a small town in the republic of Bashkiria. The family was Tatar, and poor—the father was a security guard in a factory. But Ufa had an ope
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Rudolf Nureyev’s short biography
March 12. Premiere of Marguerite and Armand, choreography by Frederick Ashton for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. It becomes their fetish ballet.
November 27. Rudolf Nureyev remounts a choreography by Marius Petipa for the first time, Act III (Kingdom of the Shades) from La Bayadère for the Royal Ballet.
His career quickly becomes international. He dances as a guest star with all the major ballet companies in Europe, the United States and Australia.
He dances the princes of the repertoire as well as creations by Frederick Ashton, Rudi Van Dantzig, Roland Petit, Maurice Béjart, George Balanchine, Glen Tetley, Martha Graham and Murray Louis.
His insatiable curiosity leads him to try all dance styles.
He also remounts the great 19th century Russian ballets by Marius Petipa, a choreographer he reveres: Sleeping Beauty,The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Raymonda.
He choreographs Tancredi and Manfred.
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Rudolf Nureyev’s childhood in Russia
“I approach dancing from a different angle than
those who begin dancing at 8 or 9. Those who have studied
from the beginning never question anything.”
Rudolf Nureyev
No male dancer ever had more influence on the history, style and public perception of ballet than Rudolf Nureyev. He changed people’s expectations. Starting out from inauspicious beginnings in a remote town in the Urals, he ended up changing the whole face of the art.
By indefatigably performing a uniquely wide repertoire night after night, month after month, year after year, all over the world, he reached a wider audience than any rival, to which must be added millions more who saw him only in films and on television (he was filmed more than any other dancer before or probably since). But more important than the size of his audience was the effect on them of his charismatic personality and the utter dedication with which he performed. His own idiosync