The
Baryshnikov Arts Center, which turns 10 years old this year, has received a $3 million birthday check from the Rudolf Nureyev Dance Foundation. The gift is the first toward a permanent endowment for the center, which provides artistic residencies and presents some 20 shows a year at its two-theater facility in the Hudson Yards area of Manhattan. One of the studios there will be named for Mr. Nureyev, who died in 1993 and trained at the same ballet academy in St. Petersburg as Mr. Baryshnikov. “This gift attaches his name to something I think he championed — artists experimenting, challenging themselves to do better, taking risks,” Mr. Baryshnikov told The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the gift. The Baryshnikov Arts Center opened in 2005 with the mission of creating a gathering place for artists of all disciplines. The fall season includes shows by the puppeteer Ronnie Burkett, the Aakash Odedra dance company and the experimental theater director Daniel Fish. The gift is the largest yet made by the Nureyev foundation, which is based in Chicago and has disbursed some $12 million over the past 20 years, according to Barry L. Weinstein, its board chairman. “The gift is intended as a meaningful tribute to one of the world’s greatest dancers, Rudolf Nureyev,” Mr. Weinstein said in an interview. While the gift is intended specifically to support dance at the center, he added, both Mr. Nureyev and Mr. Baryshnikov were “connected by being nourished by an appreciation of all the arts.”
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