The May-June issue of Harvard's "Gay & Lesbian Review" has a wonderful article by Richard Canning on the legacy of ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. Based both on Mr. Canning's opinions and a host of recent post-mortem biographies of the Russian Dancer, Canning posits that chief among Nureyev's accomplishments was the return of the male ballet dancer to a status at least as important as the female prima dona's of the art.
The article plays around and speculates about the particulars of Nureyev's homosexual preferences without offering any absolutes. Yet included is the dancer's famous comment: "I know what it is to make love as a man and a woman."
And then the article explores in greater depth the conflict between Rudolf's felt-self and his own idealized persona: the slightly club-footed Tartar peasant versus the most iconoclastic male physique since Michelangelo's David; the adored bitchy diva versus the illiterate nymphomaniac with a penchant for anonymous, denegrating, "rough trade" encounters.
It's a very thought-provoking read.
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