Mikhail Baryshnikov the Focus of Rutgers Graduate's Work
After two years of sorting through video performances of the dancer for the New York Public Library's media catalogue, Tara D. Kelley meets the man
'I remember being introduced to him as the Baryshnikov expert and demurring – he’s the Baryshnikov expert.'-- Tara D. Kelley
An older generation knows him as the dancer who famously escaped from the Soviet Union during a rare appearance in Canada with Stars of the Bolshoi Ballet, the multimedia star who many critics consider to be the greatest dancer of his time.
A younger generation knows him as Sarah Jessica’s all-too-brief love interest in Sex in the City, a mash-up of genres The New York Times facetiously called “Manolo Blahniks Meet Ballet Slippers.”
But Rutgers graduate Tara D. Kelley appreciates Mikhail Baryshnikov as only an archivist can, having spent the last two years not only scrutinizing hundreds of hours of his performances, but also savoring the opportunity to meet him in person.
The experience left her with a profound respect for the dancer’s generous soul and his commitment to giving back to the world of art in general, dance in particular.
“I found him very driven, intense and energetic,” Kelley says of their one-time meeting at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where until recently she worked as the audiovisual specialist charged with cataloguing and processing the film and video materials Baryshnikov donated in 2011.
A native of New York who received her master’s degree in library and information science from Rutgers in 2009, Kelley notes that it was at the library’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division that Baryshnikov first found the access to modern choreographers the harsh Soviet system had denied him as a young dancer back home.
“Growing up, there was no opportunity for him to work with choreographers outside the Soviet system, no chance to try things experimental, no innovation,” says Kelley, who was interning at the Library for Performing Arts in 2012 when she answered a blind internal job posting for a cataloger.
That’s how she found herself involved with all things Baryshnikov from November 2012 to November 2014: viewing streaming video files, selecting media for preservation and producing voluminous records for the library’s catalogues.
Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1948, Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov began dancing at age 12. Stymied by the rigid and oppressive Soviet regime, he sought asylum in Canada while on tour in 1974, migrating to the United States the following year.
After gaining acclaim for his work with the American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet under the leadership of George Balanchine, he went on to make his mark in the worlds of movies, theater and television. On Sex and the City, he played Aleksandr Petrovsky, Carrie Underwood’s boyfriend, for nine episodes in 2004.
Over the course of her work, Kelley learned that Baryshnikov hates the word “defector” when others refer to his decision to flee to the West four decades ago. She says the archive includes footage from one of Baryshnikov’s final appearances as a Soviet dancer, as well as a documentary about the “escape” itself.
“It’s the stuff of a suspense novel,” Kelley says. “You’re viewing his Montreal Bolshoi performance, knowing the plans are already in place. More reason to come to the library!”
Kelley says Baryshnikov’s commitment to assisting fellow artists is evident in his funding of the annual $50,000 Cage Cunningham Fellowships designed to encourage innovative work by emerging artists. In addition, an arts center in Manhattan bearing his name offers studio time, showings and other forms of support to up to 30 artists every year, completely free.
Kelley’s brief encounter with the mega-star came about almost serendipitously, toward the end of her gig with his archive.
Baryshnikov was conducting research at the library in the summer of 2014 and Kelley was on her way to a non-related meeting when a curator pulled her aside and asked if she’d care to say hello.
Would she ever.
The two exchanged pleasantries and talked about the collection, which includes a black-and-white clip, circa 1964, of a teenaged Baryshnikov taking lessons with the famed Alexander Pushkin in St. Petersburg. There’s also footage of Baryshnikov’s first international ballet competition, five years later.
The archivist recalls being more excited than nervous during the meeting. “I remember being introduced to him as the Baryshnikov expert and demurring – he’s the Baryshnikov expert,” she says. “Also, I was happy to have a chance to meet his wife Lisa; we’d corresponded about footage requests, and it was great to connect.”
As they parted, Baryshnikov said, “The work continues,” meaning the library would continue to receive material as the dancer continues his career.
Kelley says such face-to-face meetings are a rarity among archivists. “You’re very lucky if the person whose collection you’re working on comes to meet you. Most of the time you receive the items after the person has moved on,” she says.
Kelley herself has moved on. She’s now working with the film and audio collections at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a research branch of the New York Public Library located in Harlem and dedicated to the global experiences of people of African descent.