He is short, with rounded muscles and the pale face of a man made up permanently as Petrouchka. Yet when he launches his perfectly arched body into the arc of one of his improbably sustained leaps—high, light, the leg beats blurring precision—he transcends the limits of physique and, it sometimes seems, those of gravity itself. If one goes by the gasps in the theater or the ecstasies of the critics, such moments turn Mikhail Baryshnikov, if not into a minor god, then into a major sorcerer.
The paradox of the man turns out to be as fascinating to dance fans as the miracle of the artist in flight. Offstage he broods aloud about the "moral preparation" and asceticism that he insists are as important to the dancer as physical training —while avidly sipping a Scotch and soda and smoking cigarettes. He thinks of himself as a loner, "a wolf lost from the pack," but he is perhaps another kind of wolf as well. He has conducted affairs with several women—among them, dancers he has worked with—since arriving in the West last summer. He ended one of them with what friends regard as chilly abruptness.
The man who has said, "I am drawn to sad ballets, sad feelings," can be the life of the party when the spirit moves him. He is an accomplished mimic with enough cheek to throw his imitations directly in the face of his target. He is also a man who usually does not have to be begged to sit down at the piano and play for a convivial group. Once, at a bash for the American Ballet Theater in Texas, he and several other male dancers skinny-dipped in the pool. When he saw a woman soloist at the other end, he led a group of playful men in taking off her bathing suit.
Paradoxical? "Misha" is more than that. He is an enigma compounded of moody shyness, bold theatricality, post-adolescent intellectual pretense and a sweetness that makes him melt at the sight of an appealing house pet. But that is how it should be for the newest, brightest star in an art that is itself a series of paradoxes. What other discipline demands of its practitioners that they train like athletes and sweat like stevedores in order to achieve romantic effects of the most ethereal nature? What other art places such emphasis on tradition, yet depends on such unreliable resources—the kinesthetic memories of its artists, the visual recollections of its devotees —to preserve that tradition? What other art has stressed so emphatically the feminine graces, while making most of its durable legends out of men?
There have been a handful of such dancers in this century. In his brief time (1908-17), Vaslav Nijinsky's wild genius established itself as the mythic standard against which all premiers danseurs will apparently always be judged. In the '50s and early '60s, Erik Bruhn, 46, now resident producer of the National Ballet of Canada, dominated ballet with sheer elegance. His style was pure and restrained, his partnering impeccable. If anything his reputation has increased since his retirement. He has an enormous following and will dance again this summer at A.B.T. When Rudolf Nureyev burst upon the West in 1961, he brought back some of the Nijinsky excitement. Nureyev has always had Tartar energy and impact; now 37, he has become a dancer of protean range.