California Posted May 27, 2011 Share Posted May 27, 2011 This fascinating clip from 1979 just showed up on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G31uS3p0Qso Link to comment
Bradan Posted May 30, 2011 Share Posted May 30, 2011 Not a very sophisticated response, but his demonstration of fast and slow pirouettes reminded me of Suzanne Farrell demonstrating big and small steps on the Muppet Show http://youtu.be/7BjnS-ApxOQ Link to comment
California Posted May 30, 2011 Author Share Posted May 30, 2011 I was also interested in the fact that he was performing in China in 1979, 10 years before the fall of the Berlin wall and 12 years before the fall of the Soviet Union. It tells us something about China's political relationship with the Soviet Union at that point in time, that Baryshnikov could travel with an American performance group. I'm guessing he would not have done that if he had any worries that the Chinese would turn him over to the Soviet Union. Any political scientists here who know more about this? I'm not aware of Baryshnikov ever travelling, e.g., to the Warsaw Pact nations before the fall of Communism. In some early interviews, he said he was afraid to go out in crowds, as he feared the KGB might snatch him. White Nights was filmed in Finland to give the appearance (landscape and architecture) of Siberia and the Soviet Union, as is well known. In the "extras" on that DVD, Taylor Hackford points out that it was impossible for Baryshnikov to go to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, although Gregory Hines and Helen Mirren visited before filming started to get a better feel for the environment. Link to comment
Helene Posted May 30, 2011 Share Posted May 30, 2011 For Mirren this would have been a homecoming, since she is of Russian descent. Link to comment
Bradan Posted May 30, 2011 Share Posted May 30, 2011 I don't know anything much about Sino-American relations in the late 70's but I did a Nexis search for newspaper reports at the time, and apparently Baryshnikov was there with Hope and others (including Big Bird - and I'd just been joking about a Muppets theme!) as part of a Cultural Exchange programme. Presumably there must have been behind the scenes negotiations about Baryshnikov taking part, and so no real threat to him while there - none of the reports I found mentioned any concerns of that sort, though admittedly they were mainly focused on Bob Hope and how his jokes went over in China. From the AP report, 4th July 1979: Hope's performance was the highlight of the first American Independence Day celebration since normalization of relations between the United States and China. American festivities began with an international open house at the U.S. Embassy, which served hamburgers and hot dogs.The audience of 2,000, mostly the foreign community and a scattering of Chinese, roundly applauded the 76-year-old comedian's first live performance in China. The show, in the old Capital Theater, with its red velvet curtains and red star chandelier, was filmed for American audiences as part of an NBC special to be telecast this fall. ... Other performers included the Philadelphia Boys' Choir, ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov, mimes Shields and Yarnell, Big Bird, singer Crystal Gayle, three Chinese comedians, and a Chinese magician. The Washington Post's Tom Shales wasn't too impressed by the eventual three hour show that the YouTube clip came from, but does say this about Baryshnikov (15th September, 1979): Ballet star Mikhail Baryshnikov brightens the show by appearing to enjoy himself, and when he is applauded by students at the Peking Ballet School, he scolds them, "Come on, stop it!" The man is all charm. But Hope practicing Tai Chi with a group of Chinese to the inexplicable accompaniment of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" is pure ham, and Hope referring to a Chinese landmark as "this gorgeous hunk of real estate" seems clumsily inappropriate, as do jokes about rice paddies, Chinese laundries, and "column A and column B." The poster of the clip has written a memoir of the trip, which is excerpted here: http://www.laughmakers.blogspot.com/ Link to comment
California Posted May 30, 2011 Author Share Posted May 30, 2011 The poster of the clip has written a memoir of the trip, which is excerpted here: http://www.laughmakers.blogspot.com/ Thanks for that info and the link. 1979 was five years after "normalization" of relations with China -- and five years after Baryshnikov's defection. And, of course, that era is in such sharp contrast from the performances nowadays in the west of several Russian dancers discussed elsewhere on this site in recent days. Link to comment
Mel Johnson Posted May 31, 2011 Share Posted May 31, 2011 Remembering the times: By 1979, it had become apparent that monolithic Communism was quite a myth, and while, during the Korean Era, it might have been a normal thing for the PRC to run errands for Soviet Russia, by the 70s, that had gone quite by the boards, and if the Russians wanted their defectors pursued and/or captured and returned, the Chinese were not automatically liable to help them. It was one of the good things that came out of discoveries made at the end of the Vietnam war. Link to comment
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