Mikhail Baryshnikov
"Working is living to me,'' Mikhail Baryshnikov once said. He has worked hard and lived to the fullest. His name is synonymous with dance throughout the world. His dancing is a sublime vision at the dawn of a new century. Mikhail Nikolaevitch Baryshnikov was born in Riga in 1948 and began his ballet studies there in 1960. In 1964, he entered the Vaganova School in what was then called Leningrad, studying with the legendary Aleksander Pushkin and soon winning the top prize in the junior division of the International Varna Competition. Word began spreading of this extraordinary young dancer of precious classical purity and exquisite presence. Clive Barnes gave notice of what was to come after observing the student Baryshnikov in Pushkin's class, describing him as ""the most perfect dancer I have ever seen.'' In 1978, Baryshnikov left ABT for New York City Ballet, where he could work with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. He returned to ABT in 1980, not only as principal dancer but also as artistic director, a distinguished position he held for almost a decade. In the years that followed, Baryshnikov's explorations of artistic frontiers became one of the most dazzling spectacles of the age: dances by Merce Cunningham and Erick Hawkins, the play Metamorphosis on Broadway, The Turning Point, White Nights and Dancers on screen, Emmy Award-winning television specials with Twyla Tharp and Liza Minnelli, glittering galas for Martha Graham and Paul Taylor. Baryshnikov is a naturalized American citizen. In 1990, he teamed up with Mark Morris and founded the White Oak Project, a unique dance company that reflects Baryshnikov's passion for modern dance and embodies the extraordinary transformation of a paragon of Russian ballet into the very model of perfection in American modern dance.
Information from http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3693
Information from http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/artists/?entity_id=3693