Rudolf Nureyev
Profession:Dancer, Choreographer, Actor
Country of Origin: Russian Federation
Country of Asylum: France
Date of birth: 17 March 1938
Died: 6 January 1993
Rudolf Nureyev's legendary leap over the barrier at Le Bourget airport on June 17, 1961, marked a turning point in the extraordinary career of this talented artist and a significant moment in the history of the Cold War. Following triumphant performances in Paris in 1961, the young prodigy from Leningrad's Kirov Ballet decided to ask for political asylum in France.
Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near the shores of Lake Baikal. "It seems to me very symbolic and revealing that I should have been born en route in between two places," he once said. "It makes me feel that it was my destiny to be cosmopolitan. Ever since I was born, I have had no real sense of 'belonging', no real country or house to call my own. My existence had none of the usual, normal limitations which make for a feeling of permanence and this has always left me with a strong sensation of having been born stateless."
His parents were Moslem peasants of Tatar origin. As a political commissar, Nureyev's father was constantly on the move. His mother was on her way to join him in Vladivostok when she gave birth prematurely to Rudolf.
The family settled in Moscow when Nureyev was three months old. Three years later, a bomb destroyed their home and they lost everything. They were obliged to move to a village in the Bashkir autonomous republic, their region of origin. Nureyev was five years old when they settled in Ufa, capital of Bashkir. It was there that he discovered dancing. He joined his school's folk-dancing group, and it was during a performance at the local opera that he understood his true vocation.
"I was utterly possessed. From that day I can truthfully date my unwavering decision to become a ballet dancer. I felt 'called'. Watching the dancers that night, admiring their other-worldly ability to defy the laws of balance and gravity, I had the absolute certitude that I had been born to dance." Despite his father's opposition, Nureyev stuck to his guns. He was soon noticed by a former dancer named Anna Udelstova, who sensed that the young man should be encouraged and took him under her wing.
Nureyev danced a few minor roles at the Ufa Opera, and then went on tour with the company to Moscow, where he enrolled at the Bolshoi Ballet School. His sights, however, were set on the Kirov. On August 17, 1955, he set out, without a kopeck in his pocket, for Leningrad. There he met up with Udelstova, who urged him to apply for an audition at the Kirov. He was accepted immediately, at the age of 17.
Three years of study with Alexander Pushkin confirmed him as the school's most outstanding pupil. Despite his individualism and lack of discipline, and despite being described as insubordinate by his teachers, Nureyev made extraordinary progress and became the partner of the greatest stars of the period. He proceeded to eclipse them. The wild acclaim of the Paris audiences during the company's European tour confirmed him as a star at the age of 23.
The day after his dramatic decision to stay in France, a car came to pick him up from the Ministry of the Interior. He recalled, "Before handing me a titre de voyage (travel document), the man in charge of my papers asked me what would be my future source of income while in France. 'My source of income will probably be the Marquis de Cuevas Ballet Company,' was finally the best I could tell the man."
In fact, he left Paris and the Marquis' company and went to London to join the British ballerina, Margot Fonteyn. They formed one of classical ballet's most memorable partnerships.
He continually extended his capabilities and became a proponent of modern dance. A perfectionist at heart, he refined his technique and performed works by all the great choreographers: Bournonville, Petipa, Fokine, Balanchine, Ashton, MacMillan, Martha Graham.
A solitary character, Nureyev never really settled anywhere. Born in the USSR, he held an Austrian passport as of 1982, resided in France and worked all over the world. Being 50 years old and the Director of Ballet at the Paris Opera did not stop him from dancing. As he said himself, the theatre was his homeland, and dancing his whole life. He also starred in two films, including "Valentino" (1977).
But a significant event occurred in the life of this eternal wanderer in November 1987: after 26 years of exile, the Soviet authorities granted him a two-day visa to visit his sick mother.
Nureyev died on January 6, 1993. He was buried in the tiny Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in France.