Perpetual Motion: The Public and Private Lives of Rudolf Nureyev

In the first full-scale biography of Rudolf Nureyev since his death from AIDS in 1993, Stuart tells Nureyev's story "with wit and grace" (Chicago Sun-Times). "No dancer in history has been so splendidly characterized in the written word."--Francis Mason, Ballet Review. of photos.

This first full-fledged biography of the "greatest male ballet dancer" of our times since his death from AIDS in 1992 traces his achievements and discloses the private life he managed to obscure so well from the media. Stuart convincingly tells how Nureyev, a dancer of boundless energy and appetite, changed the role and image of male ballet dancers with his athleticism and sexuality. In trying to impart an epic quality to his biography, Stuart's Rudik, Rudi, Rudolf three-part structure proves conducive to revealing Nureyev's drive and personality. Beginning with Rudik, of Tartar descent, a child born on a train, Stuart reveals a peripatetic young life, spent traveling in Stalin's Russia from place to place, over great distances, living off relatives, surviving by the wiles of a mother determined to keep her family intact during some mean times until they could rejoin their military father. As one ballet dancer remarked, "He was born on a train and spent the rest of life going 100 miles per hour." The celebrated defection at the Paris airport ended Nureyev's Russian connection. Then there is Rudi, a dynamo on stage, wildly promiscuous in his private life. He became an international sex symbol. To director James Toback during negotiations for Exposed, Rudi said, "You don't really expect me to go without sex for more than ten or eleven hours, do you?" As Rudolf, at the height of his fame, he worked ceaselessly; he had homes across the world. Stuart discloses that Nureyev had likely been HIV-positive for a decade. But, he fought his disease, working up to three months before his death. On hearing that Clark Tippett, the American dancer, had been diagnosed with AIDS, Rudolf said, "Tell him never to stop dancing." Such an indomitable will is fascinating to encounter, and taken with all the other vignettes about Nureyev's career (the fiery and devoted friendship and ballet partnership with Dame Margot Fonteyn and his difficult later years in Paris), this life story illuminates the nature of creativity on many levels. The writer's style is tiresome at times, but that doesn't deter readers from satisfying their curiosity about a fantastic dancer or in recalling images of the dancer in motion. Bonnie Smothers