People

By Guy D. Garcia

He is renowned for his fluid movements onstage, but this was ridiculous. Mikhail Baryshnikov's repertoire was strictly freestyle, as he took a break from the American Ballet Theater's six-city tour to try a little whale dancing last week at San Diego's Sea World aquatic park. Trading his tights for a wet suit, the A.B.T. director jumped into a training tank for a pas de trois with two 900-lb. Pacific whales. An avid supporter of the Save the Whales campaign, the Latvian fed the leviathans some fish and performed an impromptu water ballet with them. "They're so powerful yet so gentle," he enthused. Speaking for the whales, Trainer Jennine Antrim spouted, "They were very responsive to him. They looked quite graceful together." Of course, Misha makes all his partners look good.