A Ukrainian he may be, but Sergei Polunin is a great fan of Russia’s strongman President Vladimir Putin, so much so that he has added a tattoo of Putin’s face to the growing collection of ink that adorns his body.
The mercurial Ukrainian followed that with a series of barely coherent late night social media rants. A highly homophobic one, opening with the injunction ‘men of ballet, man up!’ led a shocked Paris Opera Ballet to withdraw an invitation for Polunin to star in its production of Swan Lake.
The next rant targeted fat people suggesting they should be slapped. Finally (that we’re aware of) Polunin pronounced ballet ‘boring’ and wondered how he had ended up involved with it.
It’s hard to decide, therefore, whether to continue to describe him as a ballet dancer – and a prodigiously gifted one at that – and to assess what his latest pronouncement might mean for his forthcoming show at the London Palladium, about which no details have yet been revealed, though clearly, once they are we will let you know.
Sergei Polunin has made no secret of his wish to pursue a lucrative career in Hollywood, though small appearances in three feature films so far (including Ralph Fiennes' forthcoming Nureyev biopic) don’t appear to have set the powers that be in LA on fire.
So, over the past year Polunin has built on the success of his video dancing to Hozier’s Take Me to Church (25 million Youtube views) with Tempo, a video collaboration with fashion photographer and director Rankin to music by Husky Loops.
Polunin has also made another video with Hozier, and that leads us to believe that one or more of these works may feature in some form in his forthcoming Palladium show.
Though no longer a full time ballet dancer, Polunin guests at Munich’s Staatsballett, and if pushed we would guess that the Palladium show will include some ballet, too.
As for the guests that will figure alongside Polunin, we wouldn’t hazard a guess, beyond noting that for his previous London show he counted on the support of his former girlfriend, Natalia Osipova, alongside dancers from the Royal Ballet and a number of European companies.
Tickets are on sale, with the top priced seats at £409.50 entitling the holder to a meet and greet with Polunin himself.
| What | Sergei Polunin, London Palladium Preview |
| Where | London Palladium, Argyll Street, London, W1F 7TF | MAP |
| Nearest tube | Oxford Circus (underground) |
| When |
28 May 19 – 01 Jun 19, 19:30 Sat mat 14:30 Dur.: TBC |
| Price | £23.50-£409.50 |
| Website | Click here to book |