Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely.
Idol has pretty much taken me out of my recording and out of my choreography. I have managed to slip in some choreography jobs. And I've been writing songs for other artists.
At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it!
I always figure I have this tree and there's always some green fruit that's not ready to pick or blossoms that are ready to flower; there are always some ready to drop off too.
If the simple positions of ballet are demonstrated straight on, they seem quite dull and lifeless, but when put on a diagonal, they begin to take on all kinds of possibilities.
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.
I spent a lot of time taking acting lessons Actors have no inhibitions, and Im inhibited by everything. To be able to make fun of yourself is a skill and a liberating experience.
We dance with women in groups, but it is very rare that you have a partner that is a woman. The dance world is very macho - woman, boy, always couples, and it's very standardized.
I'm not interested in a group of people with some sort of incredible homogeny,a group that can do the movement I want. I'm interested in people whocan take the movement somewhere.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
I use geometric and mathematical ideas to organize material, but those are tools. The purpose of the work is not to expose that at all, but to arrive at some kind of expressiveness.
The reason I think the shows I do are successful with a wider public is because they tap into something that's beyond dance and is about being told a story. That's what people want.
I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate 'defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word.
A theater is such a revealing form of art, such a transparent and good actors, they're such powerful individuals. I always kind of dreamt that one day I will open my mouth on stage.
I spent a lot of time taking acting lessons... Actors have no inhibitions, and I'm inhibited by everything. To be able to make fun of yourself is a skill and a liberating experience.
I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.
Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policeman, always alert, always tense. But I don't agree with that because policeman don't have to look beautiful at the same time.
One of the good things about my having some recognition is that I can do something for the people I think ought to have more and correct some of the matters fate fails to take care of.
All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills.
You're out on stage, the music is blaring, the crowd is screaming, the lights are flashing, your heart is pumping, the sweat is flying, and it's the greatest feeling in the whole world.
There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something.
I'm constantly being approached by people who say, 'You've introduced me to a new world that I didn't even know I liked.' Even if I didn't set out to do that, I'm very proud that I have.
No matter what I try to do or explore, my Kirov training, my expertise, and my background call me to return to dancing after all, because that's my real vocation, and I have to serve it.
If you feel someone suspicious is following you, the best thing to do is to talk on your cell phone, Even if you just act as if someone is on the other end, it will make them think twice.
I think that there was a fad where everyone said, "I want you to create a signature step for my artist." The thing is, for me, music creates the step. The artist commands the step, you know?
I think that there was a fad where everyone said, 'I want you to create a signature step for my artist.' The thing is, for me, music creates the step. The artist commands the step, you know?
I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies - bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician.
If I want to be truthfully honest, I think, dealing with the stress of the situations that I've been going through, medicating with anything, I think, is dangerous because it becomes a crutch.
I don't want to do action that doesn't mean anything. Everything I do I want to have character development and three-dimensional characters, fallible humans, and this is definitely one of them.
I was born in Toronto and studied with the National Ballet of Canada. I went to school to study dance, slept on the floor, ate nothing, waitressed - and then there was a Mary J. Blige audition.
We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.
The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us.
My first boss at the BBC was Aubrey Singer. The main thing I learned from him was discipline. I also learned things about myself: namely, that I hated commuting and didn't really want a 9-5 job.
I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than lifes daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.
It's surprisingly difficult to build fake overhead bins, especially ones that, you know, you can open really easily - because when you're floating around, you don't have any traction, obviously.
I think school is so important. I was good student. A rebel, but I did well in my studies. I don't close myself to anything. I liked reading and I still love learning. I loved history and German.
I'm a tough coach, but on the other side of that is me telling them to go all out, "because you're great, because I don't want you to fail, because you were born to do this and you have a dream."
I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than life's daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.
With dance and theatre, I think people get very nervous about not knowing the right things. They feel like they've missed something, or that they're not bright enough to watch it. It's not a test.
I'm a sucker for turquoise sea, white beaches and palm trees. I've been to the tropics every year since I could afford it. It's the perfect place to unwind. I can chill out, read, do a bit of yoga.
The point of acting is to hide yourself and get lost in character. To play the same character in eighteen movies would be defeating the purpose I believe so I try to keep a little bit of diversity.
When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it's the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography.
Astaire never thought of what he was doing as balletic, but Kelly was always trying to dance with women on points. And his choreography is so showy and flashy. He always looks self-satisfied to me.
I've always been just as interested in making people think as I am in making them feel, and one of the things this scientific process allows me to do is make the audience look differently at dance.
The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one's feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.
So time over time what will change the world, no one knows? The only promise is a day to live, to give and share with one another. See the wisdom from mistakes in our past; the promise of a new day.