In the '70s and early '80s, ballet in America became, fleetingly, a pinnacle of popularized glamor. The blinding star of this bright moment was Mikhail Baryshnikov, known even to philistines as the charismatic Misha. He swiftly became the saving grace of ballet's lagging box office after critic Clive

Charming, Clean, Elegant, Implosive, Phallic, Physical force, Soviet ballet: the bolshoi and the kirov