Dancer

The very first thing you notice about the young Ukrainian ballet superstar Sergei Polunin is his deep set of piercing eyes which somehow seem to unnerve him as much as the people he stares at. He cuts a striking figure shirtless displaying a profusion of tattoos and his taut sinewy body with perfect abs clad in figure hugging tights looking every inch the bad boy of ballet that he is now universally recognized as. Of course, Polunin wasnt always like this as this new profile from filmmaker Steven Cantor starts with clearly showing an eager-to-please charming little boy growing up in his native Ukraine. When his parents became aware that their only son had this exceptional talent, they decided that they would do everything in their power to ensure that he would get to fulfill his potential. His mother moved them to Kiev to enroll Sergei in the best Ballet school, but as this was very expensive both his father and grandmother went abroad to get better work in order to pay the fees. Polunin progressed so well that the next step at the age of 13 years old, was the prestigious Royal Ballet School in London, but this came at heavy price. With his mother unable to stay with him because of visa restrictions and his father and grandmother still toiling away to pay the bills for so long, the family never ever recovered, and when his parents ending up divorcing it greatly impacted the teenage Polunin, unable to speak a word of English, just threw himself into his studies. It paid off handsomely as in 2009 when Polunin was just 19 years old he became a first soloist at the Royal Ballet, and the just a year later he became their youngest ever principal. At the same time. he also partied hard into the night pumped full of drugs and drinks. He did this with the same dogged determination as he danced seemingly as a means to find himself, but also at the same time to deal with his depression that had really started when his family split.