Rudolph Nureyev in 1961

There has been a lot of chat on this channel over the past few years around what happened to Rudolph Nureyev stylistically, technically and artistically after he defected from the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad. Here are four snippets of performances by the dancer in four ballets in 1961, just before and after he arrived in the West: [1] ’Laurencia’ solo - Leningrad [2] ’Sleeping Beauty’ solo - Leningrad [3] ’Swan Lake’ solo - Leningrad [4[ ’La Bayadere’ - Paris The film was mostly taken by Teja Kremke, a fellow student at the Kirov and sometime lover of Nureyev. The quality of much of this amateur film is not good at all but as there’s little film extant of Nureyev at the time, it’s interesting to watch to be able to plot where he was stylistically, technically and artistically then and consider how things changed after he made his ‘leap to freedom’. Enjoy!