Mikhail Baryshnikov

Born 1948 in Riga, Latvia, Baryshnikov is considered one of the greatest dancers of our time. After commencing a spectacular career with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he came to the West in 1974, settling in New York City as principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

In 1978, he joined New York City Ballet, where he worked with George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. A year later he was appointed artistic director of ABT where, for the next decade, he introduced a new generation of dancers and choreographers. From 1990–2002, Mr. Baryshnikov was director and dancer of the White Oak Dance Project, which he and choreographer Mark Morris co-founded to expand the repertoire and visibility of American modern dance.

As an actor, he has performed widely on and off Broadway, as well as in television and film, receiving a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk Award nomination for Metamorphosis, and an Academy Award nomination for The Turning Point. Other theatrical productions include Forbidden Christmas or The Doctor and the Patient, Beckett Shorts, In Paris, Man in a Case, The Old Woman, Letter to a Man, and Brodsky/Baryshnikov. Recent projects include NOT ONCE., a cinematic installation developed in collaboration with Jan Fabre and Phil Griffin, a theatrical production and film directed by Latvian director Alvis Hermanis entitled The White Helicopter, a new adaptation of Chekhov’s masterpiece The Cherry Orchard directed by Igor Golyak, and most recently François Girard’s The Hunting Gun.

In 2005, Mikhail Baryshnikov launched Baryshnikov Arts in New York City, a creative space designed to support multidisciplinary artists from around the globe. Among Mr. Baryshnikov’s many awards are the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts, the Commonwealth Award, the Chubb Fellowship, the Jerome Robbins Award, and the Vilcek Award. In 2010, he was given the rank of Officer of the French Legion of Honor, and in 2017 he received Japan’s prestigious Praemium Imperiale International Arts Award in Theatre/Film.