The greatest dancer of all time is having a birthday party!
By Evan Toth via Press Release
One of the greatest dancers that the world has ever seen - MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV - will be celebrating his 75th birthday with a major concert happening at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (Tivoli, NY) on Sunday, June 25, 2023 at 2PM.
The event will be Co-presented by the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) and Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, and will feature an afternoon concert on Kaatsbaan’s beautiful 153-acre property featuring an excellent roster of performers. The lineup will include influential musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries whose work has inspired Mr. Baryshnikov throughout his life in the U.S.: American avant-garde artist, composer, and musician Laurie Anderson, Canadian jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall, Russian–born American singer, songwriter, and pianist Regina Spektor, and North America's leading practitioner of Japanese flutes and percussion Kaoru Watanabe. The program will also feature a musical performance by choreographer Mark Morris and remarks by actress Anna Baryshnikov.
Baryshnikov explains his excitement about the upcoming event.
“I am honored that this occasion brings together the Baryshnikov Arts Center and Kaatsbaan Cultural Park communities. Both organizations exist to nurture and support artists, so sharing time together in the beautiful countryside of the Hudson Valley this summer, with a unique lineup of musicians and artists whose work means so much to me, is an event I’m looking forward to with immense pride and excitement.”
A true icon of the 20th century arts landscape, Baryshnikov commenced a spectacular career with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, coming to the West in 1974 and 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, and a second theatrical production directed by Latvian director Alvis Hermanis entitled The White Helicopter, and director Igor Golyak and the Arlekin Players Theatre’s new adaptation of Chekhov's masterpiece The Cherry Orchard. In 2005, he launched Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) 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.
For more information and to buy tickets, please visit: bacnyc.org/performances/performance/mikhail-baryshnikov-at-75.