In his life and career as a ballet dancer, dancer, actor, choreographer, artistic director and administrator, Mikhail Baryshnikov has readily faced challenges and controversies, and taken chances.
However, when Latvian theater director Alvis Hermanis said to him, " 'I want to propose to you something unusual,' " Baryshnikov acknowledged that "I was first kind of skeptical that it was possible."
Hermanis' idea ("it was not my idea, actually," Baryshnikov said) was an experimental one-man show in which Baryshnikov would perform the poems of the late Russian Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky.
Or, you could say, inhabit the poems, since besides reciting the poetry in Russian, Hermanis' vision was of Baryshnikov also physically taking the audience into an interior world with movement and gestures. Hermanis described his proposal to Baryshnikov as " 'a journey based on Brodsky's poems.' "
The idea/proposal became "Brodky/Baryshnikov," which debuted in 2015 at the New Riga Theatre in Riga, Latvia — a return journey for Baryshnikov to the city he was born in.
The journeys have continued, including performances in London and New York City, and "Brodsky/Baryshnikov" will be performed Jan. 17-21 at the Cutler Majestic Theatre at Emerson College, Boston. Hermanis directs.
Baryshnikov has evidently taken to the idea. "I hope we'll have a captive audience," he said of the Boston shows.
Despite some initial skepticism on Baryshnikov's part, there were reasons to believe that he might embrace such a project.
During a recent telephone interview from the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City ahead of taking the show on tour again, Baryshnikov, speaking with a charming but not heavy Russian/Latvian accent, said that Hermanis knew that he and Brodsky had been close friends.
Indeed, "he (Brodsky) is still in my mind like we had talked yesterday," Baryshnikov said.
Meanwhile, Hermanis "was reading his (Brodsky's) poems and was a big admirer of his work."
Brodsky (1940-1996) was expelled ("strongly advised" to emigrate) from the Soviet Union in 1972.
As a dance student around the age of 16, Baryshnikov said, he was aware of Brodsky as someone the authorities "considered a hooligan and was sent up north."
Baryshnikov was born in Riga when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union. He had already been called by critic Clive Barnes "the most perfect dancer I've ever seen" while with the then-Kirov Ballet (now the Mariisnky Theatre) in then Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) before defecting to the West in 1974 during a tour in Canada.
A little later that year, Brodsky and Baryshnikov met in New York City where they were both now living. Brodsky reportedly said, "Mikhail, nice to meet you. Sit down — we have a few things to discuss."
Brodsky's poetry can be intense and fatalistic, but not in a way that alienates. Rather, it is both eloquent and visceral. He won the Nobel Prize in 1987.
"Farewell, and don’t judge me too harshly," Brodsky says in an early poem. "Burn my letters, like a bridge … Be strong and fight. I’m happy for those who may travel along the way with you."
"He was really obsessed with mortality. I would say he knew he had heart problems from the early years and it was in the family," Baryshnikov said. "And he was not careful about his health — chain smoking, and the word 'diet' didn't exist." Brodsky died of a heart attack at 55.
"But he had a lot of humor. He was a really extraordinary human being," Baryshnikov continued. "He was a bit of a romantic and loner. Self-educated. Couldn't lie to save his life. He was like a big brother. He was working until the last second of his life. And he was a perfectionist, of course."
Baryshnikov said he and Hermanis "went through a lot of texts and a lot of poems through a lot of years."
The poems are read in Russian, but an English translation by Jamey Gambrell will be surtitled for the audience. "It kind of flashes through the set," Baryshnikov said. He called Gambrell "a very talented woman." Her translation "gives one the essence of each poem, gives one the sense of it."
The performance is also "highly visual. It's a very beautiful set — a glass house which is kind of abandoned."
Physical forms of theater such as Japanese Kabuki help interpret the poems through movement and are "bridges between the poems and certain reflections," Baryshnikov said.
Some of the poems are pre-recorded and played from an old reel-to-reel tape recorder on stage.
"In some instances you hear Joseph Brodsky's own voice. It's not just standing, sitting and reciting to the audience. It's like a spiritual conversation," Baryshnikov said. "A conversation with a friend."
Nevertheless, Baryshnikov was asked if a conversation/performance in Russian might be rather an esoteric experience for a non-Russian audience.
Baryshnikov noted, for one thing, that a number of people in the audience will likely be Russian-speaking, as well as academics (perhaps in Slavic studies) and students. Also, international theater such as this has become more prevalent around the world, he said. "Twenty-five, 30 years ago, it was strange. Now it is common. We're speaking of globalization from the positive side." Universalities can hold a universal audience captive. Shortly after the Boston performances, the production will have its Canadian premiere in Toronto Jan. 24-28, and then be in Chicago Feb. 2-4.
But there is one limitation.
Would Baryshnikov ever perform "Brodsky/Barishnikov" in Russia?
"No, I don't go to Russia," he replied matter-of-factly. When he performs the show in Europe, "A lot of Russians come." Among other venues for the show in 2018 are the Czech Republic and Italy, he said.
Has he ever been back to Russia? Baryshnikov said he left Russia in 1974 and he's "not going to come back."
Latvia is a different story, despite what can't have been an especially happy upbringing there. His mother, who helped inspire his love of dance when she took him to performances, hanged herself when he was in his early teens. Baryshnikov studied dance at the Vaganova School in Leningrad before joining Kirov.
After coming to the United States, Baryshnikov danced with the American Ballet Theatre (becoming its artistic director) and New York City Ballet and other companies, "burnishing America's classical ballet with his virtuosic Russian technique and contagious passion," in the words of Ismene Brown writing for London's Daily Telegraph. He also encouraged contemporary choreographers and performed their work. Later, he established White Oak Dance Project with the choreographer Mark Morris, and in 2005 founded the Baryshnikov Arts Center, which offers space and funding to new artists and a 238-seat theater for performances.
As an actor he has done commercial work (including the 1985 movie "White Nights" with Gregory Hines and Helen Mirren, and "Sex and the City," his character wooing Carrie Bradshow on HBO), but also taken on some avant-garde projects such as a production based on Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and "Letter to a Man," a one-man show based on the diaries of the legendary but troubled ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky.
"Brodsky/Baryshnikov" is similarly a reach for a performer, but at the production in the New Riga Theatre there were "a very nice group of people" guiding the production. After a good start there he said that his performance has "hopefully deepened. I think, like every work, I feel it's hopefully (deeper). It's difficult for me to evaluate the progress."
With his 70th birthday coming on Jan. 27, has he been doing any life evaluation recently?
"Thank you for reminding me," Baryshnikov said wryly.
"You know, I'm thankful to this destiny, to life, that I lived that long. It was an interesting life and I'm trying to cherish every new day and use this time and not get too depressed about my age."
Contact Richard Duckett at richard.duckett@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @TGRDuckett