Rudolf Nureyev, 54, (1938-1993) Soviet Ballet dancer

Rudolf Nureyev was one of the greatest dancers the world has ever known today we celebrate the life and career of an extraordinary artist who died earlier this year Maria was a mesmerizing performer who defied artistic rules he was a classical athlete whose unique talent not only revolutionized male dancing but also won a whole new audience - the art that he loved his defection to the West at the height of the Cold War and his outrageous lust for life fostered a romantic image that lasted throughout his life later this afternoon we'll be screening a film of Kenneth McMillan's Romeo and Juliet which features Rudolf Nureyev in his celebrated partnership with Margot Fonteyn but first friends critics and fellow artists pay tribute to one of the great stars of the 20th century he was a great star an incredible star personality that came out and grasped the audience and held it it was a love affair the Blazing Star and meteor inspired all of us our whole generation and generations all over the world and to come succeeding mesmerizing on an offstage that's what makes him such great start [Music] Rudolf Nureyev was one of the 20th century's most charismatic figures adored by millions he dominated the world of ballet for more than 30 years with his beauty passion and athletic prowess but this god of the dance came from humble beginnings he was born on a crowded train travelling across Siberia in 1938 and at the age of three he was evacuated with his mother to a remote village in the Bosch Gere Republic life was hard his childhood was spent in grim poverty and he remembered often going hungry but at the age of six he was taken to the ballet for the first time and it changed his life I saw better at the age of six first time next year at the age of seven I saw small deck and of course I was flabbergasted nice so I knew that's what I'm going to do I remember when I came to the kindergarten next morning there's one room the crystal chandelier a cave floor I was dancing away I don't know what I was doing I could quickly whisked me out through into the garden [Music] this passion for dancing had to be concealed from his father who wanted Nureyev to follow him into the army yet he persisted and against all odds was accepted at the legendary Kirov school at the late age of 17 his training accuracy was essentially in the grandest traditions of classical dancing and it was a training which was perhaps short for him because he arrived late but he did fortunately become under the tutelage of a great teacher Alexander Pushkin and Nureyev stem promise was such that he must have absorbed so much from Pushkin that he probably gained more out of his relatively short time as a student and a dancer then many another artists there would have gained in twice the time at the end of his course he went to a competition in Moscow and amazed everybody with the way he danced including the Corsair pas de der which later became one of his signature pieces in the West so it was no surprise that he got offered a contract with the Kirov ballet in Leningrad and principal ballerina their students kaya who was the wife of the director Sergei F wanted to dance with him he made his debut with the company partnering the principal ballerina there he spent the next three years at the care of dancing principal roles in the great 19th century classics Sleeping Beauty Swan Lake Lobby Adair and local stairs by the time he went to Paris with the company at the age of 23 he was already one of Russia's biggest stars there had been rumors and reports in 1959 1960 are this extraordinary young man and when in 1961 the Kirov tally came to Paris new leaf danced we heard about this week victim in London Paris was a watershed in the reves life not only because of his huge artistic success there but also because it gave him his first taste of freedom obviously he tasted a new kind of experience it wasn't approved but he mixed with dancers from the Paris Opera he went out and savored the nightlife he had a wonderful time not doing what he was told to do which was always his attitude despite an array of success his arrogant disdain for company regulations so angered Soviet authorities that they ordered him to return to Moscow on the pretext of dancing at a state Darla's probably authorities thought he is dangerous we have to do better now to send him back to Moscow he had a intuition last moment he jumped to the police in Airport on June the 17th 1961 while waiting at the airport Nureyev handed himself over to the French authorities the Kirov went on to London without him and the next day will be in London and I remember holding newspaper and on the headline of these big portraits of him red line through the defection sensation and as especially for us for Kirov Evalia to see that they were so down was the height of the Cold War it was time when we really did believe that there could be a war between the Soviet in the West I mean that was not just sort of vague and this was just before the Cuban Missile Crisis it was just after the u2 flight and Russia was in many ways ahead of us so it was an enormous shock when this handsome gloriously mysterious man from the east decided he wanted to come to us it was a boost in a way for the for the ego of the West Marez defection caused a media sensation for the first time he experienced fame western stars but his ambition was to dance within a matter of days he was signed up by the prestigious market of Cuevas company in Paris [Music] after the artistic conservatism of the Kirov Narae have reveled in his newfound freedom he was hungry for fresh experiences in dance and eager to compare his brilliant Kirov technique with the great dancers of the West he went to Copenhagen to study lured by the Danes reputation for speed lightness and precision but it wasn't long before London audiences too were rewarded with a glimpse of the Maverick star Margo rang us up about three months later and said I'm having one of my yearly garlis you know this young man you've seen this young man do you think I should ask him I know he's having some lessons in in Denmark at the moment and say we said yes of course he'd be wonderful there was no news about that he was actually in London or in England and it was all a bit huh we knew something hush-hush was going on before class and then there was this dancer I remember dressed all in black and slowly as the class went on in a word passed around so it was Chris he had no English and he was obviously feeling quite sort of isolated he was very wary at that time because the French were following him everywhere and in fact he came to London under an assumed name he was known as Jasmine and Jasmine went to close and everybody said this convert Jasmine this must be this fabulous new rave because they could see it once who class give death they're all bearing his quality we first saw him dance at a gala organised by Dame Margot Fonteyn for the Royal Academy of dancing and for that he asked for a solo from several national he was a new name was gonna be good cold the curtain went up it was a skryabin poem tragic and onto the stage surged this wonderful young man in great heights and with a trickle earth - and I think we all knew at that moment we were in the presence of a force of nature the whole house was bursting to see this dancer they'd heard about that had escaped and the curtain went up after the lower jaw and they was standing right at the back of the stage and somehow the look of him holding the cloak immobile and the continuance of the music froze the house they I don't think anyone clapped as it were then we came to this first musical climax and he suddenly rushed forward as fast as he could right to the front of the stage right opposite me and the whole house were mad like this it was a terrific shock for the audience so much so that he lost his nerve and he forgot all the steps that Fred had given him and so he sort of had lived a solo and then picked up a bit that Fred had given him and somebody wasn't really the so know that Fred had given him at all I saw him that old well whatever happened we've got to get him quickly to come garden [Music] it was Damien at Valois who saw new leaf dance and realized that here was a young man who could be a wonderful al breached with her company and plainly he should be given become his greatest ballerina and a dead model Fontaine [Music] and so that came performances before dinner performances that you excited so much public fascinations less public attention it was an extraordinary concatenation of two remarkable forces the icon of British banner our greatest ballerina the dancer who epitomized everything the British ballet meant brought face to face with a man named Arthur who have was possessed by this demon of performance and at that time had an extraordinary romantic presence [Music] mostly technically physically in every way they were just meant to meet on the Searles and dumps together they appear to dance together forever I mean you couldn't believe they both hadn't sprung from the same school in every way just most fascinating theme that to people should come it's a country so far apart and appear to have been brought up together in school together ideal partnership [Music] they complemented each other and he came with this rare and wonderful schooling which was some two hundred years old the closer we saw examples of that the better because he was still forming her school it was a question of two ends meeting together and making a whole he was a young example of the very old school she was a middle-aged example the integers in her forties of a very young school and the combination was very interesting you could see Margo daily blossoming again a flower maybe a shrub that has had a wonderful time blossoming blossoming and then it's time is almost over and then suddenly these glorious blooms started to come again because he absolutely made her dance they were so very different she was so very elegant and had been a name for years and years and he was a Tartar and theory and passionate sensual and Margot was not at all like that very warm very elegant quiet he was the opposite absurd opposite that worked wonderfully certainly her sensitivity her incredible musical aptness the Grace and decorum of her dancing provided an extraordinary contrast with what norm and I suppose they did project the idea of a kind of love affair which was a useful stage convention and also which the public longed to believe in they were not romantic lovers in the weather Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor were romantic lovers and yet they were a couple in the world's mind and they became icons not just for ballet lovers but icons for everybody who adored the very notion of two beautiful people's together one of the highlights of their partnership was Marguerite and her mom's a ballet especially created for them by the British choreographer Frederick Ashton a version of Dumas a tale of the doomed love affair between a dying courtesan and her ardent young suitor it's poignant Lee distilled the romantic poetry of Nureyev and Fonteyn his partnership [Music] I was very much in that the backup group in that ballet and so we watched all the early rehearsals and even in the studio it was we knew we were watching something quite extraordinary for time and then did endless before once it saw fit and you know extraordinary curtain calls we were in the dressing room taking off our makeup and leaving and still the curtain calls were going on so it was a very strange and exciting time the sixties were the golden years of Maria's career technically he was at the height of his powers and physically he was at his most beautiful well of course above all he had charisma and this is something you can't learn you're born with that the remarkable features he had those eyes as cheekbones and his authority on stage this authoritative manner of walking strutting he had total confidence in what he did he did have this extraordinary magnetism that did reach right up into the God as the entire theatre experienced it at the same time it was a very conscious awareness of himself as a sexual being as much as a dancer and that they were used doing the most extraordinary pyrotechnical things we'd never seen before and he was jumping extraordinarily high he was spinning he was he was ending in these beautiful fifth positions what you were most aware of was him as a man as a real person with real emotions and I never forget that performance Romeo Juliet I should I was so nervous but in the minute when I ran downstairs you know from the balcony to see him for the first time and when he grabbed my hand and look at his eyes he was so intense youthful bold and exciting when I immediate that stood I am 14 years old and I'm in love this extraordinary sense of physical passion those people said he was like a panther and indeed there was the sense of an animal energy and at that time an animal elasticity about what he did the spring was very powerful the whole effect was of some extraordinary controlled but fascinating the way he jumped was not like a dart a projectile it was slow you could see him taking off and then floating through the air and he had this extraordinary soft landing when he was young he must have had very flexible Achilles tendons because the shock of the landing was immediately cushioned he went through his feet absorbed the shock so that you got this feeling of of softness of an animal jumping and taking the shock and moving on and then followed by incredible pirouettes that he could control so that he would slow them down when he wanted to speed them up when he wanted to didn't always work and part of the excitement was that he would take from those tremendous risks all sorts of people from all walks of life would be absolutely fascinated by him we had amazing scenes and floral street people queuing up queuing around the block to get seats people would follow him all over the world when we had seasons in New York with the Royal Ballet people some most dreadful fans to her an absolute pain but would follow over there and be pestering Rudolph he got fed up with a lot of it I mean it he they were they weren't absolute nuisance him and all over the world people flocked to see this man why it was is hard to define partly I think it was because he was had this extraordinary attraction I think it was also because he was outrageous loved all these social life and the grander they were the happier he was and the first time you went to it was invited to Kensington Palace Kensington Palace to have lunch with Princess Margaret he got dressed about five times before he left and then he ended up he'd bought a new pair of boots which I'm sorry everybody must have seen photographs something in these long boots you know so he looked a bit like Puss in Boots and that was the first time he wore them he was so proud of them I didn't have the nerve to say you know I think you look awful I suppose he had a sort of a fashion all of his own really bit off and he did most the time dressed very badly I thought but he had a look about him that was specially him it was a lot of fun and it was very exciting being with someone like him at times his taste for excitement landed him in trouble but this only served to fuel the Narae of myth how do you feel about it how did you get a mom who wanna know this do you dance this evening in all his activities whether it was sort of climbing on roofs or being caught with drugs which he didn't actually have or whatever he was doing he was news he was newsworthy and his work was always wonderful he never let that go down he was I mean whatever time he went to bed or didn't go to bed he was always in class the next day he would rehearse for hours over and over again with just what he wanted to do for Eddie if he wasn't performing at night he would go to any other company that was in town any dance company every dance company and after that he'd go to a film I mean he really needed 60 hours at night and 110 in the day he never never smoked with this extraordinary energy Nureyev was able to shine not only as a dancer but also as a producer and choreographer in 1968 he mounted his own production of the Nutcracker in which he is the prince partnered the ballerina Merle Park his choreography married the nobility of his classical training with a fresh psychological interpretation of the story [Music] I'd love to see it was my favorite Nutcracker we had another Nutcracker which I I think I said well be more use more we just done by secure the Russian very master from Leningrad but for me the best Nutcracker England has ever had was the one Rudy put on person in London I prefer to any other I loved it [Music] hello Nureyev was a classical dancer born and bred he was always added to give his body new challenges during his career he moved way beyond the familiar territory of academic dance it was characteristic of Nora if I think that he sought every sort of chiropractic experience he worked with I think every major choreographer of his time when I came to the West the idea was not just Here I am my best the greatest intelligence and let me show them what I came to learn more than in choreographer Dehaene is really discovering new way of moving a new language and of course they have that language allows to delve into one's inner being more complex things could be portrayed on stage it is enormous legionaries credit that he was insatiable both for work and for experience and for the new was an extraordinary wisdom about his art in that he knew that he must go on he must seek ever fresh challenges he could not go on just through that dreary parade of princes but some male dancers been forced to [Music] he was always interesting as a contemporary dancer could never not be riveting to watch but he wasn't totally convincing and so however much he tried in choreography by Martha Graham by Murray Lewis even Glenn Tetley you are never really persuaded that he was a natural modern dancer natural contemporary dancer it was always a very beautifully classically trained dancer attempting a different style [Music] in Portales Oriole for example which as tailors own role he didn't have that massiveness that naturalness of a big athlete playing around he always knew that he was in control but that he couldn't lose himself [Music] though nowadays dancers are expected to move fairly freely between classical ballet and the contemporary modern dance styles and so on there is still very much a difference in approach and in training and the two sides can't quite disguise the difference that a classically trained dancer has a very upright carriage and rolling on the floor is deeply unnatural to a ballet dancer so it always feels slightly clumsy rather tense as though they're aware that they're going to hurt themselves what's the first classical dancer well one of the first to break through that barrier that existed between modern dancers and classical ballet dancers and of course I suppose coming from Russia he wanted to experience all types of dance which was marvelous and he did he did ask a great sin of its because now ballet dancers do modern dancing and you know it's no longer sort of another world the range of roles Nureyev danced with breathtaking as was the number of his performances he appeared in works choreographed by some of the biggest names in twentieth-century dance including Maurice Faiza blendtec Lee Rowland Petty and Martha Graham [Music] he was greedy for experience as he loosened his association with the Royal Ballet he performed with companies all over the world and though a dancers career is usually short he seemed to push his body on and on if you're going to be honest with yourself how long do you think you can keep dancing at this sort of pace I guess everything comes to an end alas alack and well when it comes to to come do you see that under no I don't he always attended class and he rehearsed and he worked and he performed and performed I don't know how I did it I know of no other dancer ever who has done so many performances in such a that sort of space of time Nuria worked and worked and worked and worked aim work was his his crusade his salvation his identity Mireya felt most alive when he was performing a show man as well as a dedicated artist he seemed to relish his occasional flamboyant excursions into television and film [Music] [Applause] I know [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] but fun and games apart ballet remained sacred to Nureyev and from 1983 to 1989 he was director of the Paris Opera Ballet where he mounted several new productions including his Hollywood version of Cinderella [Music] we did a many production of the big classics but based on pretty far most of them but the Cinderella Dollywood did create completely from beginning to end and he had this wonderful idea about setting it into the surface into the the this world of Hollywood with all the films and before this between 20 and 30 and he had all this I did a lot of which I just researched and on the old movies Charlie Chaplin and all these very old movie Buster Keaton and all these people this new role as producer and director didn't spell the end of Neary of the dancer and he continued to perform in many ballets and in many guises [Music] I think the invitation to become director of the value of the Paris Opera was an enormous stimulation to him [Music] he mounted an amazingly wide repertoire he brought in for the first time proper productions of the old Russian classics he revived works from the French historical past which had been overlooked for many years he had new works created and he found a way without neglecting the established stars of the company to give chances to the youngsters Sylvie GM she must have in about 16 or 17 and already he had marked her out and she was dancing principal roles [Music] Miriam's final production for the company was also the last ballet he ever staged an old Russian classic rabbi Adair was both a homage and a return to his roots [Music] after the Ballet's premiere the cast gathered on stage to salute the man who had devoted his life to their art the French government honored his genius for making him Commander of Arts and Letters it was to be his last cursory fool [Applause] three months later Rudolf Nureyev was dead undoubtedly in your elves influence on the valley world on the last 50 years has been simply incredible and it'll go down in history he will go down in history as one of the big heroes of this generation the core of nerdiest being was his love his belief in classical academic dancing his burning desire to worship it as you have to worship in public in the theater [Music]

Channel: George Pollen

Views: 1,012,748

Keywords: Rudolf Nureyev

Id: iFXgou31qHw

Length: 44min 9sec (2649 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2018