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Britain Gives Soviet Dancer OK to Stay : Ballet: Irek Mukhamedov leaves Bolshoi. His move is called the first major artistic defection of the <i> glasnost </i> era.

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From United Press International

The British government has granted Soviet dancer Irek Mukhamedov a “leave to remain” in Britain after he resigned from the Bolshoi Ballet and joined Britain’s Royal Ballet company.

Reports today called the move the first major artistic defection of the glasnost era.

The Soviet performer, who critics have hailed as the world’s most exciting dancer, arrived in Britain on June 3 to discuss his upcoming work as guest artist with the Royal Ballet for the 1990-91 season.

Royal Ballet spokeswoman Amanda Jones said that, after a meeting Tuesday, Mukhamedov sent a telex to the Bolshoi Ballet announcing his resignation, signed a five-year contract with the British company, and went out with his pregnant wife to look for an apartment.

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“It is a major coup for us,” she said. “We have a number of principal dancers, of which he will be one.”

The Independent newspaper said the dancer had “effected the first artistic defection of the glasnost era,” the liberalization of Soviet society under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

The rather businesslike manner of Mukhamedov’s taking up residence in Britain was in marked contrast to the defection of Rudolf Nureyev, who in 1961, as the last Soviet dancer to join the Royal Ballet, approached a police officer in Paris and asked for protection from two men nearby he said were KGB agents.

Jones said no response had yet come from the Bolshoi company, which the Independent said “may now begin to have mixed feelings about the thaw in international relations.”

Earlier story, Page F2.

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