Eugene Solovyov. Baryshnikov Butterfly

A dreamy, precocious child, I've always been fascinated by flight. I admired Baryshnikov, and chased after butterflies in the wild woods outside Leningrad, and later, in the sand dunes of Long Island. He rose into the air in another graceful pirouette and touched down all the way across the ocean, hardly showing any exhaustion or sweat after his amazing leap. I was only twelve when I accompanied my mom and dad, Vova and Lena, on a more conventional route: Leningrad to Moscow to Vienna to Rome to New York City. His journey was the length of a ballet performance, but it took my family two years. We eventually landed in the same place, USA. I boxed my lovely, captured butterflies, their flight curtailed, while he floated over the highest peaks – Alps, Pyrenees – and evaded the Atlantic Ocean mermaids' charms. No Icarus, he; no need for artificial, bulky wings, when his powerful legs had little live motors, like Mercury. Yes, he was the messenger of the gods, and we were the lucky mortals to observe his tireless flight from Leningrad to New York City. The story lines of the ballets we saw fade from memory, but not his incredible grace or sure step, straight into the air. If Nijinsky was a man who became a bird, Baryshnikov was a man transformed into a butterfly, effortlessly aloft, forever straddling the sky between the two empires.