Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov is a Latvian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor.
47 Facts About Mikhail Baryshnikov
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Mikhail Baryshnikov was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and 1980s.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov then returned to the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director.
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Mikhail 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.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov has never returned to Russia since his 1974 defection and has been a naturalized citizen of the United States since 1986.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov was born in Riga, then Latvian SSR, Soviet Union, now Latvia.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov's parents were Russians: Alexandra and Nikolay Baryshnikov.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov began his ballet studies in Riga in 1960, at the age of 12.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov soon won the top prize in the junior division of the Varna International Ballet Competition.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov joined the Mariinsky Ballet, then called the Kirov Ballet, in 1967, dancing the "Peasant" pas de deux in Giselle.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov made signature roles of Jakobson's 1969 virtuosic Vestris along with an intensely emotional Albrecht in Giselle.
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On June 29,1974, in Toronto while on tour with the Bolshoi, Mikhail Baryshnikov defected, requesting political asylum in Canada.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov announced that he would not return to the USSR.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov later said that Christina Berlin, an American friend, helped engineer his defection during his 1970 tour of London.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov's first televised performance after coming out of temporary seclusion in Canada was with the National Ballet of Canada in La Sylphide.
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From 1974 to 1978, Mikhail Baryshnikov was a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, where he partnered with Gelsey Kirkland.
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In 1978, Mikhail Baryshnikov abandoned his freelance career to spend 18 months as a principal of the New York City Ballet, run by George Balanchine.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov performed with the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer for 15 months from 1978 to 1979.
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On October 12,1979, Mikhail Baryshnikov danced the role of the Poet in Balanchine's ballet La Sonnambula with the City Ballet at the Kennedy Center.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov left the company to become ABT's artistic director in September 1980, and take time off for his injuries.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov returned to the American Ballet Theatre in September 1980 as an artistic director, a position he held until 1989.
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From 1990 to 2002, Mikhail Baryshnikov was artistic director of the White Oak Dance Project, a touring company he co-founded with Mark Morris.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999.
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In 2003, Mikhail Baryshnikov won the Prix Benois de la Danse for lifetime achievement.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov has received three honorary degrees: on May 11,2006, from New York University; on September 28,2007, from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University; and on May 23,2008, from Montclair State University.
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In late August 2007, Mikhail Baryshnikov performed Mats Ek's Place with Ana Laguna at Dansens Hus in Stockholm.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov has performed in Israel three times: in 1996, with the White Oak Dance Project at the Roman theater in Caesarea; in 2010, with Ana Laguna; and in 2011, starring in nine performances of In Paris, a show after a short story by Ivan Bunin, at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Tel Aviv.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov made his American television dancing debut in 1976, on the PBS program In Performance Live from Wolf Trap.
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The Nutcracker has been presented on TV many times in many different versions, but Mikhail Baryshnikov's version is one of only two to be nominated for an Emmy Award.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov performed in two Emmy-winning television specials, one on ABC and one on CBS, in which he danced to music from Broadway and Hollywood, respectively.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov has appeared on several telecasts of the Kennedy Center Honors.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov performed in his first film role soon after arriving in New York.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov portrayed the character Yuri Kopeikine, a famous, womanizing Russian ballet dancer, in the 1977 film The Turning Point, for which he received an Oscar nomination.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov co-starred with Gregory Hines and Isabella Rossellini in the 1985 film White Nights, choreographed by Twyla Tharp, and was featured in the 1987 film Dancers.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov co-starred in Company Business with Gene Hackman.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov hosted the show, presenting his favorite folktales, including Beauty and the Beast: A Tale of the Crimson Flower, The Snow Queen, The Last Petal and The Golden Rooster.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov appears, uncredited, in the 2014 film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit as Interior Minister Sorokin.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov's breakthrough performance in Broadway was in 1989, when he played Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis, an adaption of Franz Kafka's novel.
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In 2004, Mikhail Baryshnikov appeared in Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor And The Patient at New York City's Lincoln Center, and in 2007 in Beckett Shorts at New York Theatre Workshop.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov then appeared in the stage adaptation of Anton Chekhov's Man in a Case.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov has had a long-term relationship with former ballerina Lisa Rinehart.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov told Larry King in 2002 that he did not "believe in marriage in the conventional way", but he and Rinehart married in 2006.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton for president in 2016.
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On July 3,1986, Mikhail Baryshnikov became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov wrote that the decision was based on memories of his first 16 years living in Latvia, which provided the basis for the rest of his life.
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In March 2022, together with economist Sergei Guriev and writer Boris Akunin, Mikhail Baryshnikov announced the formation of the True Russia foundation to support victims of the war in Ukraine.
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Mikhail Baryshnikov condemned the Russian invasion and wrote an open letter to Vladimir Putin slamming his "world of fear".