tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight part two of our conversation with mikhail baryshnikov. he is here in los angeles for the premiere of his stage place in paris. it runs through april 21. we are glad she have joined this with the great mikhail baryshnikov. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

tavis: a tokamak to 92 of our conversation with dance legend mikhail baryshnikov. april 11 thru 21st you can check out the new production he stars and in santa monica. >> i worked there a couple of years ago. it is wonderful. tavis: it is a great location. you can see him in person and this new production. last night we wrapped our conversation talking about theater and you're running the

american ballet and other companies. you were explaining the rewards and challenges of running a theater company. we closed our conversation with the making -- i want to ask your perspective on this, as to why, in this country, dance and theater, classic dance theater, is still so segregated. i do not want to cast aspersions on american ballet. but it at and others seem to be wrestling with this idea, in a multi-cultural, multi ethnic america, i am including all of our faces, why is that? >> someone has said i have nothing to say and i am saying it. he was one of the first

choreographers whom i met in new york. he invited me to do a new peace -- piece with the duke ellington's music. that was the first time i got to, in the studio, with the company. it was the first time, of course and all african american cast with a couple of white people. you know, then watching the new york city ballet and then the

young lady in the ballet. and then it was the dance theater for harlem which was an all black company with a couple of white people. it was a token of courtesy, i would say. unspoken, and yes, in my view from being a foreigner, it was an unspoken etiquette that it is not just all black company or white company. we are moving toward a kind of, art is art. yes, this is npr by history.

-- black history and the human rights programs. more and more we speak politically integration over society in any spheres, education and politics, struggling for justice, etc. in art, somehow it is the slowest. look at hollywood. every second year or the academy awards or the new york film institute, it is almost -- always where are the rules for african american women and men? it is more conversation than actual action.

kill me, i do not know why. tavis: art lags, but it seemed to me it should not be that way. you listed a number of examples. arthur mitchell, etc., and there is no reason to run the list again, but it is clear these people are gifted. >> they would not dance in new york if they were not it did. more and more, it is modern dance companies. mark morris, a totally multiracial company. it is a lot of examples. now our generation, the present generation of choreographers, totally colorblind. but i see it everywhere,

downtown, in europe, it is common. there is no question. in the big companies, they still have this bit of has a tense -- hesitance. there are a few. now it is the dance theater of harlem reviving their history. back from the years of absence on the new york stage. i do not know if there is any white people there. i do not know, but i have read it and heard there is a future. tavis: i will move on but i am troubled by that fact that which

you laid out tonight was what you saw when you came here in the 1970's. it seems tragic that in 2012, not all whole lot has changed. >> it is smaller companies. again, mark morris, from very early, he was totally open. tavis: i want to circle back to "in paris." that is why you are in town. my research suggested, i will not say how much, but that you put a lot of your money into this production. what is it about this project that -- whenever people put their own resources, there is something there. >> if we brought this production to broadway, the script and the

director who was unknown would be scrutinized from a to z. then we have to put ourselves on a very hard regiment and then open somewhere out of town and then go on broadway and perform eight weeks until you drop dead a poor people stop buying tickets. he could not do that. he runs this company as a representative the tar -- repertoire in moscow. we were working on a neutral territory. we started in new york. we worked in paris and helsinki

because it is the closest. i do not go to russia. it was too expensive to shuttle them back and forth from moscow to new york. an enormous amount of money, hotels. i thought, it is hundreds of thousands of dollars but it is not millions or anything. i had a partner whom i knew for many years in russia who put half of the dollar to dollar. i knew this money would never come back. i felt free to have a little bit of control for scheduling and i could do stuff because i have a 9 to 5 job at my center. that was first, my commitment to the bac.

there were a few times, a couple of months here, it was a process from september to may on and off rehearsals in europe. tavis: you say it in a simple sentence, i do not go to russia. after all these years, you defected in 19. after all these years, why not go back to russia? >> it is very personal, which i would not go to that moment. although it is mostly about, i left for a serious reason, for a professional reasons. and political, and in 1974 it was a very gloomy atmosphere, i

would say, putting it mildly. i was restless. i wanted to be a part of a progressive society i was fed up with the communist doctrine. members of the party committee who were kgb. what you have to do, where the west you can go or not to go. i felt i was ready to face the new world. i was 26, for a dancer, i was not a kid. although i did not prepare this decision. it was spontaneous. i was touring in canada. i knew that i would put under

stress some members of my family in russia and of course people who made a commitment of my security of me being a good boy and staying with the company. something snapped inside. i thought, now or never, probably. i was alone. i lived alone. tavis: didn't speak english. >> i spoke french. but personal, you know, my mother and my father lived -- they were decent people, especially my mother. my mother was a very simple,

wonderful russian. a very talented woman. they sent an occupying force in 1945. to latvia, i was born in 1948 over there. when i left already i felt, early in my 20's i realize how miserable their life was. they lived under a huge july. -- huge lie. they spent years and years in the country, latvia, the soviet republic, they did not know the language. they did not know why they were

there. my father was a party member. he was a pretty high military officer under the jr. colonel. he was a total stalinist. he had a streak of anti- semitism and a very strewed man and a nervous man. remember when stalin died, i was 5. i remember he cried. four days. -- for days. when we realized who the hell joseph stalin was, my father was christ. totally -- crushed.

totally crushed. i felt i would never forgive that country for what they went through. we lived there until i was 12 or so with a communal apartment with five families. the same kitchen. my brother and me and parents. it was a hell. but it was a common thing. my father was not a general or admiral but he was a colonel. he was teaching in the military academy typography. he was teaching spies for the soviet government. later on, we got a two-room apartment separate. it was ok. looking back, you know, i was

not that close to him. i adored my mother but she died when i was 11 or 12. and then i left. i am very angry that all those people were lied all those years. all those years. my mother died when she was barely 40, 39 or something. a very talented woman. she took me to see the art and she did not speak latvian and my second language was latvian. latvian in the street. she used to take me to the movies in latvian. she had a couple of favorite actresses who were latvian.

she loved them but she did not understand what they were saying. i would sit next to her and tell her, "what did she say?' she said something. shhh. tavis: you were the subtitle. >> we saw that tarzan series. when the russians took mgm musicals and the films, they were showing sometimes without subtitles or a title. i remember it vividly seeing tarzan, fred astaire, the chaplin films, musicals, mgm.

because of my mother. she was interested in everything and she took me to the opera and ballet. there was a piece of meat which i really smelled from the audience. there were children on stage. there was a hook and i swallowed it. i said i wanted to do with these kids do. i was 6, 7, 8. tavis: we have your mother to thank for all of this. has this career, i'm going to rephrase that, has this life, and this life, from those humble tortured beginnings, in some ways, beautiful with your mom, but those tortured beginnings, as this life turned out to be what you thought it

was? has it exceeded your dreams? >> i never thought about those things. in russia, it is torture. children are animals. when my mother died and it was the father remarried, it was kind of awkward. i never was unhappy. i was a happy kid because i fell in love with the the theatre. kids create such a thick calluses. especially in the arts, something happens and you blame your present behavior on your parents, the way they treated you were abused you, i feel it

is in many ways wishful thinking. people cannot find inside of themselves that kind of strength to overcome or they have bad friends. in russia, we never had psychotherapy or a psychiatrist. you go to your friends and cried. you fight. a sort of agreement with where you instinctively had to go. i was pretty much on my own at age 14, i would say. i left home when i was 16. but i knew exactly what i wanted to do. i was sometimes confused but i

had people around me because i realized, speaking about, we had a wonderful, at that time a wonderful theater. it was an opera house. i realized that what really happened on the streets, because it was a jewish ghetto, they have that tragedy during the second world war they took the jews to the concentration camps and to the russians took latvians to the camp. it was awful. and the russians hysterically -- historically, during the civil

war and after, we are famous for our anti-semitism. in the theater, and everything was under this umbrella of unity and everybody dancing, ought jews and the russians and latvians and the ukrainians. you never noticed those unpleasant things. when i was outside, i was a little russian down. not a little boy. a little russian boy. i was walking next to my father, who was a military. i saw the way people looked at best. what are you doing here?

but now i am saying, i am looking at the government, i did something change? yes. but not the direction which i think the country should change. tavis: you had a point a moment ago which i resonate with, that artists are our greatest ambassadors. that is why i celebrate your artistic genius and the work you have done and continue to do and it is why i am honored to have a chance to talk to you. my delight. mikhail baryshnikov is in town in part because he is starring in and producing a product called "in paris." i am going to go see it and i am sure you will as well. who knows, i may see you in santa monica. i will see you in the coming days. honored to have the on the program. that is our conversation

tonight. thank you for watching and good night from l.a. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley.

join me next time for a look at how immigration will impact the election. and also david treuer. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. >> be more. pbs.