Ballet star Sergei Polunin found in Moscow after vanishing from London rehearsals
A spokesperson said 'he is alive and well in Moscow'
Ballet star Sergei Polunin found in Moscow after vanishing from London rehearsals
Show all 5Young ballet star Sergei Polunin has been found in Moscow after disappearing from his Midnight Express rehearsals days before the show was set to premier in London.
The 23-year-old, who was to play the lead role in Midnight Express, vanished last week.
It was the second disappearing act for the dancer, who shocked the ballet world when he dramatically quit the Royal Ballet last year.
A spokesman for the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre, one of the companies Polunin now dances for, said: “He has not disappeared, he is in Moscow. [He is] alive and well. Nothing happened”.
The reason for Polunin’s sudden departure from the Midnight Express rehearsals in London remains unknown.
Sources close to the production said that Polunin had left the show over “artistic differences” and had not mysteriously vanished without a trace.
It was thought that the heavily-tattoed dancer, known as the bad boy of ballet, could be in the middle of a meltdown.
However, Graham Watts, chairman of the Critics’ Circle Dance Section, said last week: “It might be a very considered judgement. Polunin has changed a great deal and become a mature young man and an exceptionally charismatic dancer.
“He performed in Moscow a week ago to rave reviews. He is at the top of his art, the problems he had are all gone and were, I believe, rooted in his relationship with The Royal Ballet. I’d be amazed if he just stormed off without reason.”
Polunin, who is from Kherson in the Ukraine, moved to the UK in 2003 at the age of 13 to join the Royal Ballet School.
He enjoyed an astonishing rise, winning the Young British Dancer of the Year four years later, and became the youngest male dancer to be made principal at the age of 19.
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