Dancer [Paperback]

We first meet Rudi in 1943 as he is dancing for the Russian soldiers in his small town. The Second World War is in full swing. Russia is poor and the soldiers have little or nothing, but they give Rudi little bits of their nothing as a present for his dancing. Rudi is rescued from this poverty by his ballet teacher and taken to Moscow where his dancing life begins.

The stories told by Rudi's friends take us to Paris, Rome, Caracas and New York City, We meet Margot Fonteyn, probably the person who had the biggest influence on his life but the only one who did not sleep with him. Victor, the Venezuelan hustler, who meets Rudi in the lower East side of New York City. Victor introduces Rudi to the Gay celebrity set, and the drugs and seedy side of Gay life. We hear of John Lennon and the famous stars of the 70's and 80's and all of Rudi's friends.

Rudi was a perfectionist and he was never able to meet this need. He was willful and driven, and drove everyone else in his way and in his life to become that which was impossible. He danced until his feet bled and bled some more. He had the followers and the takers in his crowd. And, in the end, he loved Victor the best.

I was not aware that this was a fictional biography unitl I read the back cover of the book. In the end, it did not make any difference. The story of this great man was told with grace and with some shock at times. The jest of the man, the dancer is there for all to see. The book caught the spirit of this man, the greatest of all ballet dancers, with the span from Russia to New York in forty years. It ends with his first visit home to Russia-what goes around, comes around. Fabulous tale. prisrob

If you want to know the factual events that made up the life of Rudolf Nureyev, then there are many good biographies of him out there. If you want to know what it might have felt like to be Nureyev, himself, or someone close to him, if you want to get caught up in the emotional rollercoaster world of the ballet, then DANCER is the book for you.

McCann has chosen to paint a portrait of Nureyev from the point of view of the people who were close to him: a fellow ballet student; a nurse in a hospital; the husband of his dancing instructor; Nureyev's own sister. I loved this choice and little by little, piece by piece, we get a view of Nureyev that is fascinating and determined, dark and moody and very, very complex.

McCann takes us from Nureyev's birthplace in the Urals to the Kirov Ballet to Paris to the bathhouses of New York City. We get a totally different view of Nureyev each time and each view enriches our understanding of this complicated and brilliant man.

McCann fills DANCER with wonderful details that really make the book come alive, although sometimes these details can be harsh. This isn't a glittering, shimmering look at the world of ballet; it's a look at an artist, in his glory and in his despair. Some of the details in Russia, in the Siberian town of Ufa, where Nureyev's family tries to exist as the family of an enemy of the Soviet government, are chilling and quite revealing.

It is difficult to describe music in prose and it is difficult to describe dance in prose, but McCann has done a wonderful job of describing the latter in DANCER. Even though I have much interest in ballet and knew many of the details of Nureyev's life before reading this book, after reading DANCER I felt I knew what it might be like to "be" Nureyev, an emotional experience I didn't get when I read the biographies.

I think DANCER is a highly imaginative book that is wonderfully well-written. I actually preferred it over any biography of Nureyev I have read thus far. If you're look for the facts of Nureyev's life and only the facts, perhaps a biography would suit your purposes better. If, however, you want an emotional experience and you want to be entertained as well, then DANCER will fill the bill on both counts and fill it beautifully. I would certainly recommend DANCER very highly.