| Rudolf Nureyev - Russian ballet dancer who famously defected from Russia to the West in 1961.
Rudolf Nureyev was born in Siberia in 1938. Despite falling in love with the ballet as a child, rather incredibly, Nureyev was 17 before he was able to join a major ballet company in 1955 due to the disruption to Russian life caused by the Second World War.
In Paris in 1961, dancing with the Kirov Ballet Company, Nureyev, in fear of being imprisoned on his return to Russia for being gay, took his opportunity and defected. It paved the way for one of the most memorable partnerships in ballet history when he first danced with Margot Fonteyn at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London in 1962. He went on to become one of the greatest dancers of the twentieth century.
Rudolf Nureyev died of AIDS in Paris in January, 1993. |
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