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Anyone who ever saw Rudolf Nureyev dance has never forgotten the experience. I saw him twice. The first was in his prime at New York City's Metropolitan Opera with the National Ballet of Canada in 1974. A vendor stood outside hawking posters and crying, "Get your Roodee Noorayev!" Inside, Nureyev performed "Giselle" with Karen Kain, then ballerina and now artistic director of the company.
- When: 9 tonight on WQED
The second time was in 1986 at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, where Nureyev was artistic director of Paris Opera Ballet and performing "Swan Lake" with his protege, Sylvie Guillem. The difference was shocking, with Nureyev looking thin and pale, his fluid muscular gifts reduced to a brittle and ghostly reminder of his powerful stage presence.
At that time we didn't know that he had AIDS, which he contracted in the early '80s. Nureyev would die in 1993 at the age of 55, a free spirit who was not afraid to break the rules in a Russian political system that was not afraid to break those who did. He raised the standard of male dancing with the Kirov Ballet and was the first to make a dramatic leap to the West, where he became the first ballet superstar.
"Nureyev: The Russian Years," on WQED tonight at 9, shows that formative time that made him the artist that he became.
It operates on two levels throughout the documentary. With photos and video of his home and student life, this BBC production in association with Thirteen/WNET New York re-creates the world where the young dancer grew up, politically and socially. Old friends, now free to speak, talk of his spirit, personality and burgeoning homosexuality.
With archival footage of the young dancer and, most dramatically, film of Nureyev's earliest performances shot by fellow dancer Teja Kremke, here on view for the first time, it is also easy to watch Nureyev's talent blossoming.
But perhaps the most compelling section comes at the end, when French dancer/choreographer Pierre Lacotte re-creates Nureyev's famous defection at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris in 1961. It serves to remind us of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, KGB agents ... and a dancer who transcended them all for his art.
