Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defected to the West in 1961.

A legendary dancer and one of the first male superstars of ballet, Nureyev’s high-profile defection to the West during a tour in Paris made international headlines and was a great embarrassment for the Soviet Union. Nureyev challenged rules most of his life. As a child, he managed to find training in dance despite his impoverished circumstances and his father’s protests. He enrolled in the prestigious Leningrad Ballet School at the age of 17. While there, he constantly challenged authority and broke rules. Nureyev chafed at restrictions imposed on him as a dancer by the Soviet government. While traveling in Europe with the Kirov Ballet in 1961, Nureyev broke company rules and toured Paris on his own. When the company boarded a plane to continue the tour and Nureyev was told he must instead return to the Soviet Union, he escaped his KGB guards and defected. Indeed, Nureyev’s legacy is that of broken rules. He challenged the rules of traditional ballet and, with his great athletic ability on stage, transformed the male dancer’s role from that of a prop for the ballerina to one of prominence. After his defection, he danced with the British Royal Ballet and with American modern dance companies. In 1989, Nureyev returned to the Soviet Union for the first time since his defection to dance with the Kirov Ballet. In 1998, five years after his death, he was cleared of the charges of treason that had been filed against him when he defected.

ARTSEDGE
The lessons in the unit Legend and Life of Rudolf Nureyev (9–12) invite students to explore the relationship of creative expression and artistic freedom to forces of societal change, and how such a relationship helped forge the rich contributions to dance performance and choreography made by Russian dance artist Rudolf Nureyev.

Capturing Nureyev: Jamie Wyeth Paints the Dancer (5–12) contains information on both artists, spanning biographies, careers and their artistic collaboration.

Students learn some basics of ballet and the French vocabulary associated with it in Ballet and Classical Music (K–4) and The Language of Ballet (5–8).

Telling a Story through Dance (K–4) introduces students to the concept of emotionally and physically telling a story through dance and pantomime.

The ARTSEDGE lesson Boys Can Dance (K–4) reinforces the idea that dancing is a beneficial activity for both men and women. Students compare the benefits of dance training and sports, and then watch video clips of famous male dancers.

In Shall We Dance? (9–12), students research a pair of well-known partners in dance, including Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, and brainstorm a list of qualities that are important for successful dance partnering. The class will learn, practice and revise a teacher-choreographed dance sequence. They will then switch partners, execute the same dance sequence and revisit the list of important partnering elements.