Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mikhail Baryshnikov is, for me, the rare artist whose life is as dramatic as his art. Defecting from the Kirov Ballet to the West in 1974 was a leap of pure conviction, and the dancing that followed defined an era; he was simply the preeminent male classical dancer of his time. What moves me more, though, is that he never coasted on that peak. He reinvented himself as a choreographer and actor and earned honors from the Kennedy Center to Japan's Praemium Imperiale. I see him less as a prodigy than as a relentless explorer who treated mastery as a starting point.

Name (English)

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Name (Japanese)

ミハイル・バリシニコフ

Reading

みはいる・ばりしにこふ

Born

January 27, 1948 (age 78)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Rat

Origin

Riga, Latvia

Occupation

actor / choreographer / dancer / ballet dancer / ballet master

Awards & achievements

• Emmy Award
• 2000 Kennedy Center Honors
• 2000 National Medal of Arts
• 1989 Theatre World Special Award
• 1973 Merited Artist of the RSFSR
• 2012 Vilcek Prize
• 2017 Praemium Imperiale
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail%20Baryshnikov
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9F%E3%83%8F%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%83%90%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B7%E3%83%8B%E3%82%B3%E3%83%95
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q295420

Tags

• actor
• choreographer
• dancer

Last updated

2026-06-11

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.