Mikhail Baryshnikov | Merce My Way | 18 November — 31 January 2009

In 2006, Baryshnikov began photographing the dance troupe of Merce Cunningham, a choreographer regarded as one of the great innovators of dance. Baryshnikov photographed dress rehearsals — running back and forth at the front of the stage and shooting frenetically in an attempt to decode Merce’s choreographic intentions, anticipating the dancers’ moves in his own little dance with the camera.

Born in Riga, Latvia in 1948 to Russian parents, Mikhail Baryshnikov first achieved international acclaim as a dancer with the Kirov Ballet, and later as the principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater and the New York City Ballet. Baryshnikov’s introduction to photographs was filtered through the constrained lens of Soviet Russia; however by his late teens he was exposed to the more expressive work of Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Mikhail Baryshinikov has been photographing for 30 years and his photographs have been exhibited in museums and galleries all over the world including: The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow; The Latvian National Opera House, Riga; The St. Petersburg History of Photography Museum, St. Petersburg; The Cortona Festival del Sole, Cartona, Spain: The Gallery at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York; The Movado Gallery, New York; The Kennedy Center, Washington D.C., and the Gibbes Museum, Charleston, North Carolina.

My love and appreciation of Merce Cunningham’s work have taken 30 years to develop. This photo project is a humble attempt to measure and understand how I see Merce’s work today.

Mikhail Baryshnikov.