Background

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev was born on March 17, 1938, on a train traveling to Vladivostok in Russia, where his father was an instructor of Soviet soldiers. He was the youngest of the four children of Hamet Nureyev and Farida Nureyeva.

Education

At the outbreak of World War II, Rudolf's father joined the Soviet army and the family moved to Moscow, Russia. There, Nureyev, along with his three older sisters, grew up in terrible poverty, and the Nureyevs were forced to live with other families. At school, he did not fare any better. Constantly teased and harassed by his fellow students for being raised so poor, Nureyev grew up lonely and isolated. But the young boy found enjoyment in one thing - music.

Nureyev, despite early discouragement from his parents, began his dancing career with amateur folk dance groups and the Ufa Opera Ballet. At the age of seventeen, he entered the Leningrad Ballet School (now the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet) to study with the outstanding teacher Alexander Pushkin.

Career

After three years of training at the Leningrad Ballet School, Rudolf joined the Kirov Ballet as a soloist, dancing full-length roles in Don Quixote, Gayane, Giselle, La Bayadere, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty.

Nureyev's offstage reputation was equally sensational, bringing him constant trouble with both the Kirov management and the Russian political authorities. In the Kirov's first-ever appearance in Paris, France, in 1961, Nureyev was an outstanding success, yet his resistance to company regulations sparked a command return to Moscow. On June 17, 1961, Nureyev cut his ties with the Soviet Union (the former country that consisted of Russia and several smaller nations) seeking political asylum (political protection) at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, France.

Within five days, Nureyev embarked on a six-month season with the international Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, dancing the Prince and the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty. As a partner to Rosella Hightower, he made his London, England, debut in October 1961 at the Royal Academy of Dancing, where he met ballerina Margot Fonteyn, who became his principal partner for many years. He became a regular guest artist with the Royal Ballet from 1962 to the mid-1970s, in addition to performing with Ruth Page's Chicago Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and on the United States and French television.

With inexhaustible stamina, Nureyev continued to perform at a nonstop pace, acquiring over ninety roles and appearances with over thirty major ballet and modern dance companies. Frederick Ashton, the British choreographer, was the first to create a role specifically for Nureyev in Marguerite and Armand in March 1963. Nureyev's own first production was the last act of La Bayadere for the Royal Ballet in November 1963, and his first reconstruction was the nineteenth-century three-act classic Raymonda for the Royal Ballet in June 1964. His fascination with modern dance, which led to performances with American choreographers Martha Graham, Murray Louis, and Paul Taylor, began with Rudi Van Dantzig's Monument for a Dead Boy with the Dutch National Ballet in December 1968. He broke into film in 1972 with his directing debut of his own production of Don Quixote in Melbourne, Australia, and the creation of the film I Am A Dancer. The film Rudolph Valentino, directed by Ken Russell in 1976, gave Nureyev his debut as a film actor.

Nureyev's guest performances were slightly cut back with his assumption (the act of taking for oneself) of a three-year directorship of the Paris Opera Ballet in 1983. His last stage appearance was for a curtain call at the Palace Garner after the production of his dance La Bayadere had been performed.

Achievements

• Rudolf Nureyev is considered a prominent art figure of the 20th century. His signature acts include Romeo and Juliet, Marguerite and Armand and Sleeping Beauty, among many others. He earned appreciation for the choreography of Tancredi and Manfred.
  
  After his death in 1993, the Paris Opera has instituted a tradition of presenting an evening of dance homage to Nureyev every ten years. In 2015, he was inducted into the Legacy Walk.
  
  Rudolf was also presented with France's highest cultural award, the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • A Life For Ballet

    (A documentary on the life of the legendary ballet reconst...)

    2011
  • Exposed

    (Wisconsin farm girl Elizabeth Carlson leaves family and h...)

    1983
  • Don Quixote

    (Don Quixote is a 1973 Australian ballet film starring Rud...)

    1973

• video (ballet)

  • Cinderella

    (A young woman is victimized by a morbid family, and her o...)

  • Les Sylphides/Coppelia/Giselle
  • Swan Lake
  • Sleeping Beauty
  • Raymonda
  • Le Corsaire
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Petrouchka/Le Spectre de la Rose

Religion

Rudolf Nureyev was raised in a Muslim family.

Politics

Rudolf Nureyev was an anti-semite and anti-communist. For almost the entire period of his life, he feared an attack or kidnapping by the KGB (Committee for State Security).

On June 16, 1961, while on tour in Paris, "for violating the regime of being abroad" Rudolph was removed from further tours of the Kirov Theater troupe in London. He refused to return to the USSR, becoming a "defector" - the first among Soviet artists. In this regard, he was convicted in the USSR for treason and sentenced in absentia to seven years in prison.

Views

In different sources, Nureyev is described as either bisexual, as he did have heterosexual relationships as a younger man, or homosexual.

Quotations: "You live as long as you dance."

"For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind."

"A pas de deux is a dialogue of love. How can there be conversation if one partner is dumb?"

"Technique is what you fall back on when you run out of inspiration."

"My feet are dogs."

"The main thing is dancing, and before it withers away from my body, I will keep dancing till the last moment, the last drop."

"I approach dancing from a different angle than those who begin dancing at 8 or 9. Those who have studied from the beginning never question anything."

"I really have to dance more often, and so I travel around. If I don't, I will crumble."

"The only critic is a full house."

"I don't care if Margot is a Dame of the British Empire or older than myself. For me she represents eternal youth; there is an absolute musical quality in her beautiful body and phrasing. Because we are sincere and gifted, intense abstract love is born between us every time we dance together."

Personality

Self-reliance and a compulsive drive directed his energy into a performing schedule around the world that only Anna Pavlova could equal. A mercurial character, shrewd, cunning, charming, and passionate, Nureyev demonstrated a commitment and a savage power equaled by no other dancer in his day. His versatility (the ability to change easily) and energy were expressed in countless classical and modern roles, on both stage and screen.

Physical Characteristics: Rudolf Nureyev was 173 cm (5 ft 8 in) tall.

Nureyev tested positive for HIV in 1984. In 1992, he was operated on for pericarditis, an inflammation of the membranous sac around the heart. In July of the same year, Nureyev showed renewed signs of pericarditis but determined to forswear further treatment. He died from AIDS complications on January 6, 1993.

Quotes from others about the person

• Oliver Merlin: "I will never forget his arrival running across the back of the stage, and his catlike way of holding himself opposite the ramp. He wore a white sash over an ultramarine costume, had large wild eyes and hollow cheeks under a turban topped with a spray of feathers, bulging thighs, immaculate tights. This was already Nijinsky in Firebird."

Interests

• music, collection of antique textiles and carpets

Connections

Nureyev had a relationship with Erik Bruhn. They remained together off and on for 25 years until Bruhn's death in 1986. Rudolf Nureyev also dated American dancer and classical arts student Robert Tracy, who later became his secretary and live-in companion for over 14 years in a long-term open relationship until death.

Father:

Hamet Nureyev

(1905 - 1970)

Mother:

Farida Nureyeva

(1907 - 1987)

Late partner:

Erik Bruhn

(October 3, 1928 - April 1, 1986)

Erik Bruhn was a Danish ballet dancer, choreographer, artistic director, actor, and author.

Partner:

Robert Tracy

(1955 - June 7, 2007)

Robert Tracy was an American dancer, writer, and educator in New York City. He taught dance history as an associate professor at Fordham University and published well-reviewed books.

Friend:

Margot Fonteyn

Friend:

Freddie Mercury

Friend:

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Friend:

Liza Minnelli

teacher:

Alexander Pushkin

(September 7, 1907 - March 20, 1970)

Alexander Pushkin was a Russian ballet dancer and ballet master.

colleague:

Natalia Dudinskaya

(August 21, 1912 - January 29, 2003)

Natalia Dudinskaya was a Russian prima ballerina who dominated the Kirov Ballet from the 1930s through the 1950s.

colleague:

Ninel Kurgapkina

(February 13, 1929 - May 8, 2009)

Ninel Kurgapkina was a Russian dance teacher and former prima ballerina for the Kirov Ballet with over 50 years of stage experience.

colleague:

Veronica Tennant

(born January 15, 1946)

Veronica Tennant is a Canadian producer, director, and filmmaker and the principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada.

colleague:

Karen Kain

(born March 28, 1951)

Karen Kain is a Canadian former ballet dancer and the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada.

References

• The White Crow The White Crow charts legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev's defection from the Soviet Union to the West at the height of the Cold War.
  2018
• Nureyev Nureyev is a unique dance drama created for the screen. Combining original choreography with dramatic monologues, the film presents a multi-faceted portrait of great Rudolph Nureyev - one of the seminal performing artists of his time.
  2014
• Dancer Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him.
  2003
• Nureyev: The Life Rudolf Nureyev had it all: beauty, genius, charm, passion, and sex appeal. No other dancer of the present time has generated the same excitement, for both men and women, on or off the stage. With Nureyev: The Life, Julie Kavanagh shows how his intense drive and passion for dance propelled him from a poor, Tatar-peasant background to the most sophisticated circles of London, Paris, and New York.
  2007
• Nureyev: A Biography A book by Peter Watson.
  1994