Creative as ever, Baryshnikov moves on

Imagine that you are an aspiring choreographer with a company giving its first performance in Lincoln, Neb. Imagine that you've signed on a guest star to whip up interest in the show.

Imagine that it's Mikhail Baryshnikov.

When former Mark Morris dancer Ruth Davidson Hahn inaugurated her Nebraska company last fall, the world's most famous dancer turned up to do a work she'd choreographed for him. A new dance performed in an out-of-the-way location, far from the glare of New York, was a recipe Baryshnikov couldn't resist. Plus there was his longstanding friendship and respect for both Morris and Hahn.

Shortly after his one-night stand in Nebraska, Baryshnikov suffered a knee injury that has kept him offstage for nearly six months. The 56-year-old dancer's comeback is a solo show that premieres in a place as unlikely as Nebraska: Holyoke, where he dances on Friday and Saturday. Then his solo tour takes him on to venues in Burlington, Vt., and Heilbronn, Germany, along with more expected places, including London and Los Angeles.

"Because it's just one dancer and one pianist [Pedja Muzijevic], we can perform in smaller spaces," Baryshnikov explains by phone, speaking from his home in upstate New York. "In bigger places it would get lost."

The Holyoke gig, presented by the Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, is a benefit to raise funds to restore the historic Victory Theatre in the city's downtown. The tour was to have ended in March at Boston's Shubert Theatre, but that engagement was canceled.

The Holyoke appearance is the latest chapter in a career that can be summed up as creative capitalism. The next-to-last chapter is taping the final season of "Sex and the City," which recently took Baryshnikov to Paris. (He insists he doesn't know how his TV romance with Sarah Jessica Parker ends.)

Since defecting from the Soviet Union in 1974, Baryshnikov has mastered the marketing of his own enormous talent to the extent that by now he could teach at Harvard Business School. First there were the guest appearances that had balletomanes writhing in anticipation. Eventually there was his White Oak Dance Project, now disbanded, which paid its own way without grants or fund-raising -- something almost unheard-of in dance.

Along the way came other ventures, including dancewear with his name on it and a line of Baryshnikov perfumes and colognes. Now discontinued, the fragrances are such collector's items that many of the listings on Google under "Baryshnikov" are frantic get-it-while-you-can offers for the scents.

And what do they smell like? "They smelled like success," the dancer says, "for a few years. But that was enough. It just supported my silly habit of having my own group and doing whatever I wanted."

While doing "whatever I wanted," he also did a world of good for the world of dance. When illustrious choreographers including Martha Graham and Paul Taylor were in dire financial straits, he bailed them out by performing in fund-raising galas that sold out because of his golden name. He championed Morris when Morris was just shy of the superstar status he's now achieved. He revived works by the seminal 1960s choreographers of the Judson Dance Theater in New York.

Judson shunned glamour; it was ironic that the most glamorous star in the dance firmament resuscitated a movement so opposed to that very quality. Thousands of people who missed the first round of Judson became acquainted with the work simply because of the lure of Baryshnikov. (And many were mystified to find the dancer sweeping the stage, broom in hand, instead of soaring above it in David Gordon's "The Matter.")

Judson is the model Baryshnikov cites when talking about his new project, the Baryshnikov Arts Center in Manhattan, which will open in September in a new building at West 37th Street. On the ground floor will be three theaters: one commercial, the other two nonprofits in which young artists can experiment. On the floors above will be studios and offices for arts organizations.

"It's very exciting," he says, "to give young students from arts schools all over the country an opportunity to evaluate their potential and meet their peers and their mentors. There is nothing else like this in the US, because everything here is on a commercial basis and there's almost no government support for the arts. In Europe there are similar organizations, but there the government gets involved. Here you're left out in the wind. And it's usually a cold one."

The center will foster collaborations among dancers, actors, writers, musicians, and visual artists. "It could be like the '60s," he says, "with [John] Cage, [Merce] Cunningham, and [Jasper] Johns working together."

His focus on the center is tied to the new tour in two ways. While some of the tour's profits will benefit local organizations in each city, other money earned will be poured into the new building. Second, "a solo evening is easier to manage than a group," Baryshnikov says, "so I can spend more time with the project and with my children." He's got four -- plus a granddaughter nearly a year old.

The tour program includes a new piece by New York choreographer Eliot Feld, set to rare vintage recordings of blues music from the south. The music was Feld's find, but Baryshnikov occasionally gets involved with the musical choices for his dances. After hearing an Alban Berg piano sonata in Rome, he sent a recording of it to Lucinda Childs, and it became "Opus One." He also got excited about Cage's 1948 "In a Landscape."

"At the time," he says, "John was fascinated by Satie, Poulenc, and other French composers almost unknown then. John was a pioneer in pushing this music." Baryshnikov sent a copy of the Cage score to Spanish choreographer Cesc Gelabert, and the result is yet another new work on the Holyoke program.

In the past, Baryshnikov has been openly critical of dancers continuing beyond their prime. He's redefined "prime." The works he commissions for himself are by choreographers completely familiar with what he can do physically -- which is a surprising amount. Unlike other older dancers, he has not deleted jumps from his vocabulary. "I'm doing almost a full class every day, so I have to jump," he says.

However, the current program "is not an evening of athleticism," he adds: "Quite the reverse. It's where I stand as a man physically and mentally. It's not trying to do something that's not mine anymore. When that happens, there's a break between the stage and the audience.

"I'm always doing new pieces. As long as there is public interest in my work and I want to do it, I will. So far, nobody from the audience has screamed, `Go home!' When they do, I'll make the decision.

"I'm dancing my age," he says firmly. "I'm not dancing my past."