The Ukrainian Dance Company has completed its New York tour and departed without replying to a request, made to the group’s director, Pavel Virsky, by three American artists, to meet and discuss the situation of Russian Jewish dancer Valery Panov, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported.
The three artists, David Bar-Ilan, concert pianist, Alvin Ailey, choreographer, and Theodore Bikel, entertainer, last week wrote Virsky a letter in which they stated, “As colleagues and fellow artists we would appreciate an opportunity to meet while you are in New York City. From the artistic and humanitarian viewpoint we are anxious to discuss, in private, the special case of Valery Panov.”
Panov, who was a leading dancer with Leningrad’s Kirov Ballet Company, was dismissed from the company last April because he applied for a visa to emigrate to Israel. The NCSJ reported that Panov has become a “desperate and deteriorating man.”
Bar-Ilan said, “This is a very sad commentary on the cultural exchange program….The cultural exchange was initiated to crack the wall between the two countries (the US and the Soviet Union). Obviously on the Soviet side, the wall remains uncracked.”
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