I’m reading Nureyev: The Life
, by Julie Kavanagh right now, and it is superb!! I don’t know anything about ballet, and know very little about the ballet world itself – and while the bare bones of Nureyev’s story are familiar to me (he was world-famous for my entire life) I didn’t know anything else. I was not aware that he was Muslim, for example. His grandfather was a well-respected mullah in their small village. Stalin’s persecution of the Tatars, as well as all the various religious groups in the Soviet Republics, made Nureyev’s religion against the law – and while he never was a practicing Muslim, he was drawn to churches his whole life. He adored the ritual, the “show” of it. I suppose part of it was because such rituals were banned in his homeland. It is fascinating. Kavanagh was a ballet dancer herself, so one of the things I truly appreciate about this book is her knowledge of dance itself, and what it was – technically and emotionally – that made Nureyev so special. She is able to make someone ignorant, like myself, understand the technicalities – the differences he brought to things like plies, and what the differences are between the different “schools” of ballet – Danish, Russian, French, English – etc. It’s also fascinating in terms of the Cold War. The chapter on his defection reads like one of the greatest spy thrillers of all time. You can’t believe it really happened that way, but it did.
Additionally, any author who approvingly quotes from Robert Conquest’s book to support her themes and to create the appropriate atmosphere is okay in my book. Conquest is one of my all-time idols and I felt a weird proprietary thrill when I saw her quoting from The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
and The Great Terror
. Yup. It really WAS that bad. The stories of how all of Nureyev’s friends and family were persecuted as a result of his defection are devastating.
I also appreciate Kavanagh’s honesty about Nureyev’s personality, which was notoriously difficult. One of the impressions I am getting from the book, so far, and it is really moving – is that Nureyev was one of those people who was aware, very early on, that life is short, we do not have a lot of time, and you have to take your chances when you can find them. You also must make your own destiny. You want to dance for Balanchine? Make it happen. He was ruthless, relentless, and he always always always had his eye on the ball. This made him a nightmare, even for other geniuses in the field, who perhaps had more of a balanced response to life … but Nureyev was not balanced. It was dance, and dance only. This was a man with a destiny. You can sense it. And he could too. Such creatures are rare.
I am loving the book. Highly recommended.
Here’s a picture of Nureyev, age 14 or 15, in a ballet studio in Ufa, where he grew up. This was before he moved to Leningrad, and joined the Kirov.
that photo is insane. he doesn’t look human. or, no, he looks ULTIMATELY human. more human than us.
bren – do you remember the post I did comparing him to Coco Crisp? hahaha Both of them said, at one point, “When I jump – I just pause a little bit in the air.”
Uhm – no, you don’t. You are subject to gravity just like the rest of us.
But the superb athleticism gives the impression of a pause mid-air, and that’s what it feels like to them. Same as Ted Williams saying that he saw fastballs coming at him in slow motion.
Amazing!!!
Here’s the Nureyev / Coco post.
ah coco. we hardly knew ye. did you read the updike ‘hub fans bid kid adieu’ article they re-posted after updike’s death? he was at ted williams last game and wrote about it. it’s an amazing piece of writing.
Oh yes. I know that piece. Absolutely elegiac. I have it in my anthology of baseball writing which is a great collection.
Sheila,
There is great pleasure to be had in reading the rhapsodies and hyperboles about the great ballet dancers, especially the males. Of Nijinsky, Marie Rembert (not sure who she was, other than she knew him) said:
âOne is often asked whether his jump was really as high as it is always described. To that I answer: I don’t know how far from the ground it was, but I know it was near the stars. Who would watch the floor when he danced? He transported you at once into higher spheres with the sheer ecstacy of his flight.”
Also remember a poster for the movie âNijinskyâ which started:
âGenius. Madman. Animal. God. Nijinsky.â
Thatâs just good stuff.
Who would watch the floor when he danced?
George, for some reason that quote brought me to tears. That really is the question to be asked.
Thanks for the awesome quotes.
And strangely enough, I just “met” Marie Rambert in the book. She was a Polish dancer who somehow ended up in England – she was part of Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes – and was involved (as a dancer? not sure) in the controversial/influential Rite of Spring process, which you brought up recently in another comment. She is referenced in Nureyev’s story as a ballet teacher at Covent Garden, or whatever the highest British ballet school was. And Nureyev’s good friend (Nigel Gosling) had somehow convinced Rambert to give classes to amateurs (he was a ballet enthusiast but had never taken a class in his life – he was a writer).
Anyway, that’s all I know!