To celebrate our 35th Anniversary in 2015, we have been digging through our past and unearthing some of the gems in our back issues. This is an interview with the great Russian/American dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov from the February/March issue 1995, when he was dancing in the White Oak Project.
It’s been 21 years since Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union, settled in the US and launched himself into international celebrity as the greatest male dancer of his day. His astounding technique and personal charm captivated audiences, including those who’d never much thought to ballet. The custom-tailored film vehicles, The Turning Point and White Nights, enhanced his fame. His hunger to stretch himself artistically inspired exciting new dances from Twyla Tharp, Jerome Robbins, Eliot Feld, Alvin Ailey and Frederick Ashton.
A lot has changed since 1974 – the relationship between his adopted country and his homeland; the once-booming, now-struggling state of American ballet companies; and Baryshnikov himself. The somewhat unruly blonde hair that accentuated his boyishness is now slightly darker and more severely styled, in keeping with his more serious, less glamorous approach to dancing. These days, at 47, he still loves performing and is as avid a student of dance as ever. However, when he’s on stage, it is no longer Giselle or Don Quixote. These virtuoso roles haven’t interested him for years, and he scoffs at the suggestion that he might sometimes miss them or even look back on them with fond nostalgia.
No, the Baryshnikov of 1995 is too busy with his projects of the present to dwell on the past. Still very much a box office draw, he is no longer the leading man at the top of the hierarchical ballet roster. Instead, he is first among equals in the White Oak Dance Project, a chamber-sized, democratically organised group that began in 1990 and makes its Australian debut in February at the Capitol Theatre in February. At the time he and choreographer Mark Morris founded White Oak, Baryshnikov was one year removed from his abrupt departure from American Ballet Theatre, where he’d been artistic director since 1980. After the headlines and political intrigues of that job, he was eager for a new and different way of working.
“I wanted to do more personal work,” Baryshnikov explained during a recent interview in the apartment he keeps in New York City. “I didn’t want to be responsible for things. I just wanted to go on stage and be more personal in my work.”
He and Morris – whose choreography formed the entire White Oak repertory during its earliest tours – asked a group of dancers they knew well and respected to join them in a new venture.
‘It was different and we didn’t imitate anybody,” he says. “It’s something we’re very proud of.”
The dancers, mostly veterans of modern dance companies and ‘older’ in dance terms (mid to late 30s in most cases) came together for rehearsals and projects rather than forming an ongoing company.
“Our original idea was exactly what we’re doing now,” Baryshnikov says. “I never thought that five years later we’d still be kicking. That’s why we called it a ‘project’. I’m very pleasantly surprised that we’re still together. The core of the original group is still here.”
Among those charter members were Rob Besserer, a tall, imposing veteran of Lar Lubovitch’s company who also works in a more dramatic vein in the dance-theatre creations of Martha Clarke; and Kate Johnson, whose luminous dancing with the Paul Taylor Company during the 1980s established her as one of the great modern dancers of her day. Nancy Colahan, also a former Lubovitch dancer, is another founding member, as is Jamie Bishton, who has been a standout in many Tharp pieces over the years. The current roster of 11 dancers also includes John Gardner, a former ABT soloist; Patricia Lent, who danced with Merce Cunningham for 10 years; and Keith Sabado, a leading Mark Morris dancer.
White Oak has performed works by a fascinatingly diverse group of choreographers. Newly commissioned pieces by younger choreographers share the program with established masterpieces such as Martha Graham’s 1938 classic, El Pentente (not currently in the repertory) and Merce Cunningham’s Signals, from 1970.
“We are not afraid to be called eclectic, Baryshnikov says. “We speak to many choreographers to see who’s interested in working with us. The only limitation for a choreographer is that the work must be to music that can be played by our live chamber quintet.”
Live music has been a sine qua non of White Oak since its inception. The repertory may be diverse in style but can be described as representing “the post-Graham generation of choreographers,” he says. “We present our programs in a very honest way. Some of the pieces are more complex and less accessible, and some are more recognizable in terms of music and dancing.”
White Oak performs in both huge and modest venues. “We show our work to audiences which in many cases haven’t seen modern dance at all. There’s no hidden message in our preparations. Good dancing – that’s what we’re going for.”
Australian audiences will see Baryshnikov in two recent solos made for him by choreographers with whom he’s had a lasting and compatible working relationship: Jerome Robbins and Twyla Tharp. Robbins presents a more contemplative Baryshnikov, the essence of distilled virtuosity, in a series of movement meditations to Bach solo cello pieces. Tharp’s Pergolesi allows him to be more outgoing and playful, but also taxes his physical limits.
“It’s probably the most difficult piece I’ve ever danced,” he says. “First of all, it’s one of the longest solos – almost 20 minutes. Just to go from the beginning to the end is an incredible challenge for one’s stamina. Also, it requires a lot of imagination because it’s a bit like playing ping pong with the audience. There are certain aspects of a comedy which have to be right – not too obvious or vulgar and at the same time entertaining. Every performance is different; there are certain elements of improvisation in the piece, certain choices she allows me to make.”
Tharp and Baryshnikov first worked together nearly 20 years ago, when she created Push Comes to Shove for ABT, a brash, sly yet affectionate send-up of many ballet mannerisms. It became a huge hit and provided Baryshnikov one of his signature roles, performing miracles of split-second timing and seeming to suspend himself in mid-jump.
Tharp made other wonderful roles for him in The Little Ballet and Sinatra Suite, and the two have performed various duets together through the years, most recently as part of a touring program called Cutting Up.
Looking back to their first encounter, Baryshnikov says: “We clicked very well. It was obvious that this would be a relationship that would go on for many years. She encouraged me in a lot of different directions and boosted my confidence in terms of trying new things.”
Robbins also worked with Baryshnikov soon after he settled in the West, creating the beautiful Chopin duet Other Dances for him and Natalia Makarova in 1976. He and Robbins have been friends ever since. A few years ago, Baryshnikov recalls, “I said to him in a casual conversation, ‘Jerry, I am at your disposal. Whenever you want to do something, just call me.’ And he did.”
Robbins had been inspired by the Bach suites, and the two began to work, a few weeks here, a few weeks there, whenever their busy schedules allowed them to be in the same place. “We began more than two years before the work premiered,” he says. “With both Jerry and Twyla, it’s always a wonderful feeling to work with them. They’re such great artists, but they’re friends too, so the work is easy, in a way. No matter how intense it is, it’s always a pleasure.”
Merce Cunningham is another master choreographer whom Baryshnikov has come to admire, and he took great pride in adding Signals to White Oak’s program. “Merce’s work is really fascinating in terms of how he modulates the classical vocabulary – the way he took the oppositions and shifted them around, his use of the contraction of the torso and the way he created a new dimension of the movement. The sculptural aspect, the air around the movement, is fascinating.”
He has found dancing in Signals to be a considerable challenge technically, but feels the dancers have grown into the style. Patricia Lent, the company’s resident Cunningham expert, helped lead by example, and Meg Harper, a long-time member of Cunningham’s company, “comes to rehearsals before every tout and cleans it up”.
Baryshnikov’s interest in new choreography is wide-ranging. When he attends a dance performance these days, it is more likely to be one by Cunningham or some relatively unknown “downtown” choreographer than a full-length ballet in an opera house. He has hopes of working on pieces with Pina Bausch and with William Forsythe, and he will dance a new Mark Morris solo on White Oak’s [northern] spring tour.
Baryshnikov seems to thrive on White Oak’s extensive travelling. The scheduling is mutually agreed upon by the dancers, with sufficient rest periods and rehearsal periods in between the performances. Usually, rehearsals take place at the extensive White Oak Plantation, a wildlife preserve owned by Baryshnikov’s friend and patron Howard Gilman. In addition to giving the group its name, it serves as a peaceful setting where they can renew their creative juices and prepare new projects away from their hectic everyday lives.
On the rare occasions he’s not rehearsing or touring, Baryshnikov’s home is in a quiet rural area outside New York, where he lives with the former ABT dancer Lisa Rinehart and their three children. But as long as the demand for White Oak tours remains high and his enthusiasm for his current explorations of dance continues, he seems likely to be found on stage more than at home.
Baryshnikov is clearly the eager student, a position he prefers to the one he had at ABT, where he was supposed to provide everyone with all the answers and tell them what to do. “I wanted to be influenced by others, to learn something. That makes me happy. While I’m healthy and still interested in dance, I would like to get as deeply as I can into what I can do. I’m still really having fun.”
- SUSAN REITER