The grace of angles - selected portraits of Aleksandr Rumnev, circe 1923-24

 

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Aleksandr Rumnev (5 February 1899, Moscow - 12 October 1965, Moscow), Russian dancer, choreographer, teacher, pantomime actor and, later, film actor. Né Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Ziakin, as a dancer he was known as Rumnev or Rumnieff, taking his professional pseudonym from the name of his family estate, Rumnia. He was apparently inspired in his dance career after his parents regaled him with their description of a performance by Isadora Duncan; only seven at the time, he immediately stripped off his clothes, wrapped himself in a sheet, and began furiously dancing in front of a mirror. By the age of twenty he had his own students and a studio, Quest for Dance. All private dance studios were closed down by the Moscow city authorities in 1924, which brought about the eventual death of avant-garde dance in Soviet Russia. Gay and with his style of dance considered "decadent", as the Stalinist grip grew tighter he fled Moscow in 1933. Some years later he was arrested, though, and spent time in prison. His film career began in 1943 and continued until 1958, his most notable performances being in Aktrisa (1943), In the Name of the Motherland (1943), and Cinderella (1947). (He was also the choreographer for Aktrisa and Cinderella.) Three years before his death he was finally able to found the Experimental Theatre for Pantomime. He died at the age of sixty-six.