Offstage, a Completely Different Animal

NEW YORK —  In the heat of dancing, he cuts through space like a panther pouncing on his prey. In the stillness of climactic ballet poses, his limbs reach out vibrantly. For his signature arabesque posture, his keenly pointed foot tingles with the assertiveness of a rattle on a snake’s tail. With his dark eyes, lean and hungry good looks, Farukh Ruzimatov dramatically defines the species known as “stage animal.”

Currently, alongside ballerina Yulia Makhalina, he’s headlining a national tour billed as “Stars of the Kirov Ballet,” which stops at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday through Saturday) and in Thousand Oaks next Sunday. In this company, Ruzimatov’s repertory includes performing the intense pirate in the famous pas de deux from Petipa’s “Le Corsaire,” the brooding young man journeying through Bejart’s choreography to Mahler’s well-known “Adagietto,” and the favored, “golden” slave to the shah’s faithless wife in an excerpt from Fokine’s “Scheherezade.”

Given all his onstage passion, and the fact that the 34-year-old Ruzimatov comes to ballet from St. Petersburg’s illustrious Vaganova Ballet Academy, the school rooted in the Czarist system, you might expect imperial arrogance and a superstar’s ego when the man himself shows up. But, as it turns out, Ruzimatov offstage--slight and elegant in black jeans, T-shirt and denim jacket--is not so much a wildcat lording it over his realm as a pussycat, purring thoughtful comments in remarkably good English, for which he still makes polite apologies.

He admits to hearing himself nicknamed “Razzmatazz” by U.S. fans, but says he doesn’t really know what it means. When given the word’s connections to “razzle-dazzle,” he almost giggles.

“No, no, I don’t think so,” he says with a laugh, “I’m pretty quiet,” even adding, “much more than quiet.”

The only child of a Tatar father and a Tajik mother, 10-year-old Farukh came to the former Leningrad, to study ballet from faraway Tashkent (north of Afghanistan, west of China). He was very much missed at home. His father and other male relatives were musicians; his mother practiced what he calls “ethnic, Asian” dance. When after a few years his lonely parents wanted their son to come home, he prevailed upon them to let him stay.

“Maybe two more years,” he remembers pleading, “and I will do something.”

And he did. When Ruzimatov graduated in 1981, Kirov artistic director Oleg Vinogradov hired him into the company’s corps de ballet to dance small but significant parts. He still cites the value in such secondary roles as the featured man in the Gypsy Dance in “Don Quixote.”

By 1984, he was dancing the leading role of Basil in “Don Quixote” and winning a “Special Prize” in a Paris ballet competition. Part of his Parisian experience included meeting Rudolf Nureyev, but in what Ruzimatov calls a “different time,” he couldn’t speak with the famous defector, who was still considered an enemy of the USSR.

In 1987, he was cast as Ali, the vfirtuoso role in a new production of “Le Corsaire.” In 1989, when the Kirov made its first New York appearances in more than two decades, Ruzimatov danced Ali on opening night, and Anna Kisselgoff noted in the New York Times that his “exciting technique deservedly brought down the house.”

Back in 1986, he had been scratched from a North American tour, and rumor had it the Soviets were worried about another defection. “No, no,” he insists, “ I was ill, or something.”

Now that the Soviet system is history, he still says he has no desire to make a move to the West. The New Russian Order may be fraught with money problems in general, and massive ballet subsidy losses in particular, but Ruzimatov is staying put. He has a wife, his second, and two sons (a three-year-old by his current wife and a 10-year-old from his first marriage) at home in Russia.

All he seeks, he says, is “new, more modern choreography, because after 34, for a dancer to be in classical style is very difficult, which is why most of them look to do modern dance.”

Two years ago, Ruzimatov tried branching out at the Kirov, when Vinogradov appointed him and another dancer, Makhar Vaziev, co-assistant artistic directors of the troupe. Ruzimatov found the new experience “a little difficult, because it’s two different professions.” Ultimately, he asked to be relieved of the directorship job, preferring to “just be a dancer.”

He speaks in low-key tones regarding the current administrative situation at the Kirov. In 1995, Vinogradov was briefly jailed and accused of bribery, although the charges were eventually dropped. Since then, he has been absent from the company and St. Petersburg. Though Vinogradov remains officially in place, Vaziev is doing the day to day work of artistic director, Ruzimatov says. He doesn’t know how the situation will be resolved, but he notes that Vinogradov is often in the U.S. at the Kirov Academy, a dance school he runs with his wife in Washingtion D.C. He said he was unaware of a so-far abortive plan for a Vinogradov-affiliated ballet to open in Los Angeles.

Ruzimatov says he misses his old boss. “Not as a friend, of course,” he says, emphasizing that artistic directors and dancers can’t really be friends, “but he was very good at organization.”

Last summer, the full Kirov troupe performed for five weeks in London to ecstatic reviews. In a veiled dig at Vinogradov, the Dancing Times’ Mary Clarke found the ballet company revitalized “under the overall direction” of the theater’s renowned conductor Valery Gergiev. Ruzimatov acknowledges Gergiev’s position as general director of the entire Kirov theater, but, when asked if Gergiev had any direct effect on the ballet, he said, “No, he is very quiet.”

It was Vaziev who put together the current “Stars” tour, choosing the dancers and the repertory. He did, however, defer to his former co-assistant artistic director on what repertory the tour’s leading male “star” would bring to North America. But with Vaziev back in St. Petersburg, who decides what ballets Ruzimatov will dance on any given performance of the tour?

“I do!” he says, chuckling.

Does everyone get to decide what to do?

“No, no,” the laughing protests come.

So who gave you this power, Vaziev?

“No, no,” he says, through even more laughter, “Myself!” Spoken, however politely and gently, like a true star.

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“STARS OF THE KIROV,” Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. Dates: Wednesday through Saturday, 8 p.m. Prices: $24-$40. Phone: (800) 300-4345. Also at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, Probst Center, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., next Sunday, 2:30 p.m. $35-$65. (805) 449-2590.