When I Think of Russia

Over the centuries, men have forsaken their homeland for a variety of reasons, but freedom to kive one's life as one chooses has always been foremost among them. Six Russian artists and performers-each at the top if his field-discuss their ambivalent feelings toward art, freedom, America and Russia. dancer Mikhail Baryshnokov, pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, poet Joseph Brodksy, chess grand master Victor Korchnoi, painter Mikhail Chemaikin, and sculptor Ernst Neizvestny left Russia over the last 20 years under different circumstances, yet several things unite them. They each consider art, not politics, as their main motive for change, and they all feel that they have, in the end, paid a high personal and cultural price for artistic freedom. In this program, which reveals details of their past and present lives, Baryshnikov dances, Ashkenazy performs with Eugene Ormandy, and Brodsky recites a poem dedicated to his son.