DANCER

What happens when you walk away from being the embodiment of your profession? Ukrainian dancer Sergei Polunin took the dance world by storm as an astonishing prodigy, gifted with both power and poise, and became the Royal Ballet’s youngest ever principle performer. But his meteoric rise hid the pressures of his family, and of a childhood that was only work, no play. Teetering under enormous expectation and gazing into the abyss of self-destruction, at 25 Polunin turned his back on stardom and ballet.