Nureyev, sex in tights

09/10/2007



A short solo from the ballet Le Corsaire starring Rudolf Nureyev, or Rudik as it seems he was called by those on familiar terms with him.

Recently I have been reading the new biography by Julie Kavanagh, who seems to have had unlimited access to a lot of new material. I was in my late teens when I was fortunate enough to attend one of his last performances with a number of Etoiles of the Paris opera. I remember being moved to tears at the time, as I enjoyed his grace, his creativity, his art shining through a body that was already riddled by AIDS at the time.

And of course, there are the fabulous photos that Avedon took in the 1960s, shortly after his defection to the West and before the start of that marvelous dance partnership with Dame Margot Fonteyn. Sex in tights, or sans tights, as in this case.

I have yet to see any dancer radiate that same raw appeal.

2 messages:

NLP Team said...

Lula--

Nice post. Thanks for the Youtube video of Le Corsaire. (Is that a clip from John Bridcut's BBC/PBS documentary?)

If you want to catch some more black-and-white photos of Nureyev, check out our new book, Life Behind the Metaphor, which features photographs from Nureyev's 1978 US tour with the Dutch National Ballet. There are a lot of shots from Le Corsaire, including one of his gravity-defying leaps.

Misgrace said...

Thank you for the information.

I think, but I am not sure, that this is an excerpt from An evening with the Royal Ballet, which was probably integrated in another documentary on Nureyev.

And thanks for the link to your blog. You have a new reader on board!

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