The virtuoso ballet dancer Valery Panov, who has died aged 87, became a cause célèbre in 1972 when, with his second wife, the ballerina Galina Ragozina, he applied for, and was refused, exit visas to leave the Soviet Union for Israel. It was fortunate that his dancing in the 1960s had attracted the attention of western balletomanes and critics, most notably Clive Barnes, who campaigned on his behalf for two years. Panov’s supporters in the west began an international campaign involving a who’s who of British and American theatre, including Laurence Olivier, John Cranko and Hal Prince, as well as the British prime minister Harold Wilson.
They were successful and brought about the dancers’ release in 1974. The harrowing details of being ostracised for two years, forbidden access to a studio in which to train and being imprisoned for vagrancy at the time of President Richard Nixon’s visit to the Soviet Union are recorded in Panov’s autobiography To Dance, written with George Feifer (1978). When their exit visas were finally agreed and they had to leave within five days, Panov was recovering from having been administered poisoned tea on a train, while Galina was suffering from a miscarriage.
