If there’s a moral to this story, it may be that you’re
better off stupid as a post, or maybe possessed of a peasant sensibility,
inclined to do hard work and happy to be paid for it. Or maybe not, since would
I have known anything about Sergei Polunin had he
not done the unthinkable, the unimaginable, and walked out of the Royal Ballet, where at age 19 he had become
the youngest principal dancer in the company’s history…if all of that
improbable stuff hadn’t happened, would I have seen him, with millions of
others last month, dancing to something called “Take me to Church?”
But I was a Lady’s house, talking about the ballet, and
Lady—being significantly more in the world than I (OK, there’s Emeritus Pope
Benedict)—immediately played me the clip. So I admired, I ogled, and I put that
away as one of those interesting experiences: A talented dancer, a likeable
tune, interesting shots. And it’s nice to see that ballet can grab seven
million hits on YouTube. Yes!
A few days later, I was looking up Swan Lake on YouTube, and
the site suggested “Take me to Church,” so I clicked on it again. And that led,
as so often it does, to seeing the original “Take me to Church,” which has
garnered 135 million hits. This would automatically disqualify it as anything I
might ever imaginably see, since the shaded area of the Venn Diagram of Marc and 135
million people is impossible to imagine. But I was curious, since I read that
the clip was in protest of the treatment of LGBT people in Russia.
And that was an issue, since Naïa, Lady’s 13-year old
daughter, had appeared a few days earlier in tears, asking if it was true: Lady
and her husband could go to jail in Russia if they said anything about gay
people to Naïa. Lady gulped, and said yes.
“And Marc could go to jail, just for being gay?”
No way out: Lady had to say yes.
Naïa was silent for a moment, then turned and announced she
was going to go cry in her room. Oh, and then she said…
“…I’ve lost all faith in humanity.”
Well, we both agreed: 13 is young for such an existential
state. It does, however, occur to me now that that speaks more to our fortunate
state than it does to the conditions of the world today.
So I called Naïa a few days later, and told her: I’m more confident
about the state of humanity than I ever have been. Imagine, I said, when I was
thirteen I could not even admit that I was gay, much less that one day I would
marry. In fact, as a child I was terrified of my wedding day—since of course it
would happen (it does to adults, right?) and I knew that I would be horribly
unhappy. Oh, and also make my wife utterly miserable. So we agreed: When the
Supreme Court strikes down all the marriage bans in the country, Raf and I will
get married in Puerto Rico, and Naïa will be part of the wedding party.
“Marc, I was just kidding!”
So today’s conundrum: What in hell is going on in the mind
of Sergei Polunin? Because I had now read that he had been born in the Ukraine,
that he had been pushed into first gymnastics and then ballet at the age when
most kids are contemplating the breach between kindergarten and first grade.
And that came with a price, since it meant that he was separated from his
mother. How did that feel? Well, according to one source, Polunin has refused
to allow his mother to see any of his performances. She does, however, follow
his career electronically via the fan pages.
I was then looking at the clip of why Polunin left the Royal
Ballet, and the reasons stated—a need for artistic growth—seemed a little
unlikely. Here, I give you the Guardian:
The
fact that he was pushed into ballet training, sent off to the Royal Ballet
school when he was just 13, left Polunin with a deeply conflicted relationship
to his own prodigious talent. Three years ago he suddenly exited the Royal,
claiming he was unable to work within the constraints of the company’s
discipline. And although he subsequently moved to Russia to dance with the
Stanislavsky and Novosibirsk ballet companies, he still did not settle. In
September last year he announced his intention to leave ballet altogether and begin a
Hollywood career, and while he is still dancing it’s unclear for how
long.
While in Russia working with the Stanislavsky and Novosibirsk
ballet companies, he had as a mentor—something he apparently never had—Igor
somebody-or-other (and my apologies both to him and to you, since the Internet
is taking an afternoon nap, or perhaps has snuck out for a little illicit
Friday afternoon golf… So be warned, anything I write after this is completely
unverified….)
Igor
was a famous dancer, and is now choreographer for the Stanislavsky and Novosibirsk
ballet companies; more importantly, he was also rich. And that, from what I
remember from this morning, was the big thing. Because Polunin said that ballet
is not cool, baseball is cool, since that way you can make a real killing.
Oh,
and one more thing about Polunin: He likes tattoos, and one of the tattoos he
sports—all of which have to be covered with makeup before each performance—is
the flag of Chechnya. The Educated Readers of this blog don’t have to be reminded
that there was a little unpleasantness between Russia and Chechnya, just as
there is that little pebble in the path between the Ukraine and Russia, and
just as there is—OK, skip the ironic tone—enormous enmity between Russia and
gay people. And that was the point of “Take me to Church,” since it became to
protest song for the treatment of gays in Russia. And if you have Internet, and
parental advisement, you can see the clip, which features gangs of masked youth
attacking and throwing onto a fire a gay man.
I’m
about as stunned as I would be if I were thrown into the ring with Mohammed Ali
in his prime.
And
what has happened to Polunin? Is he still in Russia, and if so, in how many
pieces? There’s a phenomenal talent there, but is that enough? And more, what
is it that drives a dancer at the absolute pinnacle to walk away? And I asked
myself…
…is
it moral?
Then
I thought, ‘well, haven’t I spent four hours this week doing something I really
have no interest in doing?’ Because after all, I have been teaching a very nice
lady English these last weeks, and five days ago, she wrote me a check. Because
I teach well, does that mean I can’t walk away from it? Just because Polunin
gets called “fabulous” by The New York Times, does that mean he has to crank out
a decade or two of Coppelias and Nutcrackers?
There’s
a difference, I say, but is there?
My
head has no answer. My gut tells me that it’s unspeakably sad, the life that
Polunin has had, the prices he has paid, the sacrifices he has made, but more
especially, the terrible price he will pay if he has done all of this just in
the pursuit of more money. People venerate the arts, worship the great artists,
bring to performances all the awe and adoration that the masses brought to the
church, all those centuries ago. Polunin poses the question…
…have
we been wrong?
