Strap on your pointe shoes and join Anna, Henry and Pete as they hit the floor with an episode about the Soviet ballet dancers who defected to the west. Inspired by Ralph Fienne's The White Crow, a biopic of the ballet supremo and defector Rudolf Nureyev, the gang track the careers of Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and the contemporary Ukrainian dancer Sergei Polunin, asking what it takes for these dancefloor geniuses to make it in western pop culture.

The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is...

BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogah...Anna Bogurts... Anna Bogutskaya.

BFI Digital editor Henry Barnes

Producer Peter Sale

Next steps:

• The Guardian's Simon Hattenstone interviews Sergei Polunin: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/mar/07/sergei-polunin-sacked-putin-tattoo-interview

• Four great Soviet ballet dancers (via Russia Beyond): https://www.rbth.com/arts/2015/08/11/dancing_their_way_to_freedom_4_great_soviet_ballet_defectors_48425.html

• Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov strut their stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDGVHy5iTM

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