Fans meeting favorite dancers

[Guest lsauvageau]

Two years ago the Governors School for the Arts was on a field trip to NY. My daughter and 2 of her friends were getting ready to take an advanced ballet class at Steps. Baryshnikov was there taking the same ballet class. There escort to class had worked with Baryshnikov some time ago and was able to introduce the girls to him. They were awestruck. They also took class that morning with several ABT company members.

[piccolo]

I'm totally late with this thread but here goes. When I was 15 I was moving from Japan to the US -- very traumatic. I didn't want to leave Japan but here I found myself, the day we were to leave, having a grilled cheese sandwich at the hotel we were staying at in downtown Tokyo. (All of our stuff had been shipped to the US at that point.) My younger brother and I, shoulders caved in, are barely eating. I look up and in walks Baryshnikov wearing off-white linen shorts and matching jacket and a white T-shirt. He looked awesome. He was with a very, very large man -- maybe his manager? In any case, I ran out to the lobby, asked a lady for some hotel stationery and a pencil (yes, I hadn't started using pens yet) and she asked what for. I told her I wanted Baryshnikov's signature. She smiled and said, oh honey, you're going to want a pen for that. I rushed back in, and as calmly as I could muster, I said "Mr. Baryshnikov, may I have your signature, please?" He gave it to me -- no other words were spoken -- and he transformed my day. The entire flight over to the States, I held his signature in my hand, and looked longingly out the window back towards the rapidly disappearing island. One of those best/worst days.

I did have another opportunity to meet him about 15 years later. Turns out he's a golfer, my dad's in the golf business, B. came to the company to get fitted for clubs. I got to see him swing a golf club (no comment) and then I had lunch with him and some of the guys from the golf company. Pretty cool. And no, I didn't tell him about the time he gave me his signature.

[Alexandra]

That's a lovely story, piccolo -- and you're not late at all. Any thread can be revived.

[Hans]

I remember meeting Tanaquil LeClerq at the New York State Theater several years ago. Extremely polite and gracious, and still very beautiful. She died quite soon after that.

I also remember being in class with Baryshnikov at SAB, the time Rasta Thomas complimented my dancing (I was shocked, as I had just been out for over a month with a back injury, and then Christmas break on top of that!), and shaking Edward Villella's hand after he signed my program.

Then there was the time I went to see the Kirov at the Kennedy Center and Daria Pavlenko & several friends sat at the next table. And on the way out, I got Danila Korsuntsev's autograph

But what was really fun was having people (mostly small children, but not always) recognize me as the Nutcracker-Prince at the Starbucks across the street from the Warner Theatre in DC the years I was in Washington Ballet's Nutcracker . I got to be "famous" for a few minutes whenever I went out to get peppermint hot chocolate between shows