That Nureyev Style (The Nation)

A piece from 2007, on that special Nureyev touch. You can link to it here.

And here is a short excerpt:

“What was so special about Nureyev? Americans, especially younger Americans (like myself), are more acquainted with Baryshnikov and his altogether different gifts….His entire body was involved in every movement, whether small or large; more important, as Kavanagh writes, in his dancing “the virtuoso steps were only transitions in an overarching dance picture.” His feather-light jumps, pristine footwork and multiple turns made one gasp, and yet did not call attention to themselves; they simply seemed so easy, so obvious, the logical continuation or culmination of a phrase or an idea. There was an intrinsic purity to his movement that was the opposite of showiness. Understatement was in fact a crucial part of his brilliance….Nureyev was an altogether different kind of dancer. Not that he was not a virtuoso. His jumps were breathtaking, even on video, reaching both enormous elevation and breadth in space but also achieving a heart-stopping slowness. He appeared to hover in midair; he collapsed space. Watching his performances in Giselle and Le Corsaire on video makes me sad not to have been there to see him perform in his prime, when his exceptionally pliant and deep plié allowed him, as Kavanagh puts it, to “rebound in space and sit there, for several seconds.” (Kavanagh’s descriptions of dance reveal a deep affinity for the form–she trained in ballet and has been a dance critic for the Spectator as well as the London editor of both Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She has the knack for making you “see” what a step looked like.)”