Bearyshnakov – Mikhail Baryshnikov, The Bolshoi Theatre & Dance Dance Revolution
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/NPC:Bearyshnakov
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Location:Bolshoi_Theater
https://wiki.wizard101central.com/wiki/Quest:Dance_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Baryshnikov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshoi_Theatre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution
Bearyshnakov is a Primo Ballerino Dancer who happens to be a Polar Bear. Bearyshnakov is one of the Empress’s favorite dancers, but he has had enough of her grotesqueness. Bearyshnakov allies himself with the Wizard and the Patriôtes in order to escape Polaris and get away from the dreadful Empress.
He dances at the Boshoi Theater. In exchange for your assistance in securing his passage to the New World he will help you steal the key to the Basstille so you can free Ivan the Great. You steal the key in the quest Dance Revolution and end up on stage dancing for the Empress herself.
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov (born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian-American dancer, choreographer, and actor. He was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently became a noted dance director.
Born in Riga, Latvian SSR, Baryshnikov had a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad before defecting to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in Western dance. After dancing with American Ballet Theatre, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer for one season to learn George Balanchine’s neoclassical Russian style of movement. He then returned to the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director. Baryshnikov has spearheaded many of his own artistic projects and has been associated in particular with promoting modern dance, premiering dozens of new works, including many of his own. His success as a dramatic actor on stage, cinema and television has helped him become probably the most widely recognized contemporary ballet dancer. Baryshnikov has never returned to Russia since his 1974 defection and has been a naturalized citizen of the United States since 1986. He has returned to Latvia many times; in 2017, the Republic of Latvia granted Baryshnikov citizenship for extraordinary merits.
In 1977, he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Yuri Kopeikine in the film The Turning Point. He starred in the movie White Nights with Gregory Hines, Helen Mirren, and Isabella Rossellini, and had a recurring role in the last season of the television series Sex and the City.
The Bolshoi Theatre (Russian: Большо́й теа́тр, lit. ‘Big Theater’) is a historic theater in Moscow, Russia, originally designed by architect Joseph Bové, which holds ballet and opera performances. Before the October Revolution it was a part of the Imperial Theatres of the Russian Empire along with Maly Theatre (Small Theatre) in Moscow and a few theatres in Saint Petersburg (Hermitage Theatre, Bolshoi (Kamenny) Theatre, later Mariinsky Theatre and others).
The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are among the oldest and best known ballet and opera companies in the world. It is by far the world’s biggest ballet company, with more than 200 dancers. The theatre is the parent company of The Bolshoi Ballet Academy, a leading school of ballet.
The main building of the theatre, rebuilt and renovated several times during its history, is a landmark of Moscow and Russia (its iconic neoclassical façade is depicted on the Russian 100-ruble banknote). On 28 October 2011, the Bolshoi re-opened after an extensive six-year renovation. The official cost of the renovation is 21 billion rubles ($688 million). However, other Russian authorities and other people connected to it claimed much more public money was spent. The renovation included restoring acoustics to the original quality (which had been lost during the Soviet Era), as well as restoring the original Imperial decor of the Bolshoi.
Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance genre in video games. Players stand on a “dance platform” or stage and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to musical and visual cues. Players are judged by how well they time their dance to the patterns presented to them and are allowed to choose more music to play to if they receive a passing score.
The current list of all the (known) Polaris references can be found here.
Although I am well versed in Pop Culture references but I do not claim to have caught them all. Let me know your favorites in the comments and if I’ve missed one you caught, let me know so I can add it to the list.
Text for this article is excerpted from the linked wiki pages
Bearyshnakov and Bolshoi Theater images are from Wizard101, and are copyright of KingsIsle Entertainment
Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov is borrowed from Wikipedia and is shared under the CC BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons license
Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing the Nutcracker is borrowed from the Time magazine website. It is copyright 1977 Frank Leonardo—New York Post Archives/NYP Holdings, Inc./Getty Images
The Bolshoi Theatre image is borrowed from Wikipedia and is shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license
Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova is boprrowed from Wikipedia and is shared under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Creative Commons license
Image usage qualifies as fair use under US copyright law.
Vulcan Stev's Database 