Q&A; WITH MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV : ‘I Do What I Want . . . This Is What I Do Now’

Wearing a blue work shirt and blue-gray pants that help intensify the most celebrated blue eyes in ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov sits in a hotel suite, thoughtfully answering questions about the latest transformation in a career full of dramatic change.

Baryshnikov’s 4-year-old White Oak Dance Project comes to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Friday in a benefit for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR).

After two more performances there, White Oak moves to the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Aug. 5-7, and then (following dates outside of California) plays the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara on Aug. 13- 14.

Politely impatient with questions about his life in ballet, energetic in describing prospects for the future, Baryshnikov discusses facing the challenge of modern dance at an age (45) when most ballet virtuosi have graduated to character roles.

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Question: What exactly is the White Oak Dance Project?

Answer: It’s a group of modern dancers who work together from project to project. We started it with just programs by Mark Morris, who was co-founder with myself, and then slowly graduated to different choreographers--though Mark’s still participating in the creative aspects of the group.

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Q: How has it changed since Los Angeles saw it in 1991?

A: The group has become a little shrunk for different reasons, partly because we have a chamber music ensemble with us now. We revived Hanya Holm’s “Jocose,” which is to the Ravel violin and piano sonata, and Mark decided to use string quartets by Henry Cowell (for “Mosaic and United”) and Twyla (Tharp) redid her work “Bare Bones,” which we had danced together to music by Pergolesi, into a long solo for myself.

We travel as a small group--eight dancers now, including me. We don’t have any sponsors and, financially, it just makes much more sense for us. Ninety percent of our work is commissioned and we put a lot of money toward development and new productions. That comes out of box office, and if we need additional funds, I am providing them.

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Q: Are the satisfactions of this kind of work comparable to those of classical dancing in a big company?

A: Very much so. The last four years have been a joy: a pleasure to work with great dancers, traveling together and sharing our life experiences. It’s very important to me. I like to go on the stage and dance, still--very much so--and I dance the choreography of people whom I admire and whose work I consider I understand.

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Q: Should we assume that White Oak marks a new direction in your career?

A: I think it’s just a continuation. I am a dancer and I started to accumulate an understanding of modern dance when I was at the peak of my classical career. One day I did “Swan Lake,” the next day I worked with Paul (Taylor) and two days later I was working with Twyla or Eliot Feld. For me, there was no difference--no (sense of) stepping up or stepping down or sideways.

It is difficult to totally decode my thought but modern dance has been my main interest for the last 10 years, ever since I started to work with Martha Graham, Paul, Twyla and Mark. They just opened my eyes to many things. Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance--suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.

Not that I just totally dismiss the classical or neoclassical repertory. But I stopped dancing classical works five, six years ago.

I used to dance in big opera houses and modern dance was always in more intimate spaces. So a lot of people think that for me it is a stepping down, and how can one explain that it’s not?

It’s a very different experience--like a soprano singing a Puccini opera and then Kurt Weill. For me, it’s a different cultural discipline in a way: a democratic attitude toward dance in the movement. I always knew about it, but a lot of people they don’t, and I don’t pay attention to them. I do what I want to do and this is what I do now.

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Q: Is a modern dance repertory physically suited to a classically trained 45-year-old? Any adjustments or compromises?

A: I’m still doing a full-out ballet class every day and I’m in very good shape. I can do tomorrow some of the classical repertory with ease. It is not a big deal for me, even with the (old) problems with my knee. I don’t hold back in the repertoire I am doing now.

But when you work with a creation . . . Twyla perfectly knows what kind of physical problem I have and if she gives me something that I cannot or am afraid to do, I say, “Twyla, remember it’s my right knee and I cannot do this.”

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Q: Will you discuss the break with American Ballet Theatre four years ago?

A: I’d rather not. They have a new life and I haven’t seen the company for four years. Always when they’ve had a season, I’ve been somewhere else.

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Q: And (newly appointed artistic director) Kevin McKenzie?

A: Only time will show. He’s a gentleman. At least his reputation is that. Being a gentleman is a positive quality for a director, but running a company is not a human-rights march. That’s about all I can say. I never saw his choreography.

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Q: What about the ballets you withdrew when you resigned?

A: Kevin asked me to bring back my “Nutcracker” and “Don Q” and all those things. But I think he should do them himself. I think it’s not good--not for the company, not for me, not for him--if I come back and work with the company again. It’s the wrong move and I’m not interested in that. That’s why talking about ABT is senseless because I’m not focused on my past.

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Q: Who are the young classical dancers who excite you at the moment?

A: I am not going and seeing big companies anymore. I’m not that interested. I went to (New York) City Ballet because of the Balanchine Celebration and I saw two or three performances, but I wouldn’t go to a traveling company to see another “Sleeping Beauty.” I’d rather go somewhere and see another Merce Cunningham piece when I have a free evening or some theater. My focus has changed.

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Q: OK. At City Ballet, what about (Nikolaj) Hubbe (formerly of the Royal Danish Ballet), or (Igor) Zelensky (formerly of the Kirov)?

A: Hubbe is an interesting dancer, I think. I saw him just a couple of times at City Ballet, but I also saw him earlier in Denmark. He was quite wonderful: He just jumps like a fish in the water, and is a great asset for City Ballet.

Zelensky? I was not that impressed somehow--I thought he would gain more in a year. He didn’t do as much as I would expect him to. This girl from England is quite phenomenal: Darcey Bussell. I think she is amazing. I also think Darci Kistler (of New York City Ballet) was absolutely ravishing this season.

In London I saw a wonderful boy, (Cuban born) Jose Manuel Carreno: fantastic looking, a very gifted natural actor and with beautiful, easy technique. I was really taken by him. I never saw him before--he just caught my eye as I travel and see occasionally a piece.

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Q: Please explain the connection between White Oak and AmFAR on the current White Oak tour.

A: For a couple of years, we’ve been discussing in our group what we can do for this cause. We all do a little benefit here and there, whether it’s in New York or in Europe, but we decided to try to put a couple of things (benefit performances) together while we were doing our tour. We are trying to help all the small (AIDS support) groups in different cities get more together on this issue.

We won’t raise a lot of money this way. It’s more a matter, I think, of our emotional contribution to the issue and a certain awareness of the AmFAR program. And it’s also for the memory of our friends.

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Q: How has the AIDS crisis touched you personally?

A: I’ve lost probably 15 very close friends--not just acquaintances, but people whom I really worked with on an everyday basis and spent some triumphs and defeats together onstage and off.

It affects you. The situation gets so scary that you’re taking almost for granted that people go, and you have nothing left--no emotional guts in you anymore--to react.

It is a horrifying experience but I don’t think it’s just in dance or in America. The problem in Africa is totally out of control, on a much more devastating scale than it is in the United States. It’s very much a global issue, a sociological issue, a political issue that (involves) government attitudes and that’s the scariest aspect of it.

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Q: Unlike (Soviet ballet defectors Natalia) Makarova and (Rudolf) Nureyev, you’ve never returned to Russia. Why not?

A: I wanted to go back as a private citizen and I realized that it would be impossible. I wanted to go and see privately my friends--there are a few left--and visit a few places such as the graves of my parents.

I couldn’t have done it because I would be forced to see people, to meet people, to be a public figure, which I don’t care to be. I don’t want to go in this status, as a Coming Back figure.

I would like to take my kids, when they will be a little older, to the places that I grew up, the places that I care about and have them meet the people whom I care for. That’s what counts. But to dance again on the stage of the Kirov or Bolshoi and all that, it’s no different for me than Columbus, Ohio.