Ballet and exiles

I don't usually like the snarky New Yorker party stories, but I did like this one:

Earlier this month, Mikhail Baryshnikov gave a party at his West Side arts center for a Russian citizen who has decided, as he did, thirty-four years ago, to work outside Russia: the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. Ratmansky is the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, but next year he will be moving to New York, to become the artist-in-residence at American Ballet Theatre. Like many important people who leave Russia, Ratmansky has run into politics on his way out. Moscow’s dance community cannot be pleased that this gifted homeboy is moving his operations to the West. Then, there are local politics. In the past two years, Ratmansky has made two popular pieces for New York City Ballet. So when, in February, the Times reported that he was talking to Peter Martins, N.Y.C.B.’s artistic director, about becoming the troupe’s resident choreographer, no one was surprised. A week later, however, the negotiations came to a halt. According to a City Ballet spokesman, Ratmansky’s busy schedule would not allow him to do the job. Then, in September, A.B.T., City Ballet’s neighbor and rival, announced that Ratmansky was signing on there instead, in much the same post that he had discussed with N.Y.C.B. Why the switch? “I wouldn’t like to go into it,” Ratmansky told the Times. All this added an interesting chiaroscuro to the Ratmansky picture.

Baryshnikov’s party was probably, in some measure, an effort to make everybody happy again. He invited just about every prominent figure in New York’s ballet world. Dancers from both N.Y.C.B. and A.B.T. were there, looking sleek and declining hors d’oeuvres. Board members, in their suits, sat at little tables. A.B.T.’s artistic director was present. N.Y.C.B.’s was not. Nevertheless, the crowd was highly interdenominational.

In a toast, Baryshnikov congratulated Peter Martins for “bravely inviting Alexei” to work in New York in the first place. As for hurt feelings in Russia, he mentioned that Ratmansky would be fulfilling assignments there next year. In other words, Ratmansky had not thrown in his lot with any country or company; he was simply a citizen of the global village. “There’s a new political reality in this world,” Baryshnikov said. “It’s wonderful that an artist of Alexei’s calibre can travel from one country to another—an opportunity that I didn’t have in my prime time.” He didn’t add that when he terminated his relationship with the Soviet Union he had to run for his life, with the K.G.B. shouting after him, but everyone in the room knew it.