Zitat des Tages von Sascha Radetsky:
My injuries are more due to attrition than accidents. I have a couple of herniated discs in my neck, and that more than anything else - I had a flare-up last December, and I had actually made the decision to retire before that, but that just cemented the choice. I was flat on my back.
At 11, I went to Misha's school for two summers. So when I wasn't in that school, I was taking classes at David Howard or Robert Denver's studios - kind of legendary places - and there was one summer where Alexander Godunov sort of took me under his wing; the memory's a little murky, but I felt as if I was his project for those weeks.
Sir Kenneth MacMillan's version of 'Romeo and Juliet' is my favorite full-length ballet, Sergei Prokofiev's breathtaking score a favorite composition of music. As a student of martial arts, I loved drawing my sword in defense of my Capulet kin.
It's an unfortunate reality of being a male dancer that it's not really looked upon... it's not appreciated.
At Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet Academy, I studied under a brilliant and fiery teacher. This tiny, stuttering old man flew into a rage if his students' white socks failed to reach mid-calf level. Nor could he tolerate floppy hair. We wore hairnets to class - an athletic brigade of short order cooks.
Twyla's works are complex, and they really push you as an athlete and push you spiritually as well. Before doing a Twyla ballet, you have to get everything in order: You have to get a good night's sleep, you have to eat well, you have to be in great shape, and then you just go and leave it all out there.
Ballet has a very small audience, unfortunately.
Performing, not rehearsing, is a dancer's raison d'etre, and I've been lucky to 'etre' in some extraordinary places - Cuba, Paris, Mongolia. In particular, a two-week stint in Greece leaps to mind. We danced in the Acropolis's Herodes Atticus amphitheater, once a venue for gladiator spectacles.
I hadn't really thought about doing any acting at all post-'Center Stage.'
If age someday grounds my feet and wilts my port de bras, what vestige of the old life will be left? The signs that I was a dancer will gradually fade like stripes on a beach towel. Even my knowledge of the art form, reaped in sweat over decades, could be lost over time.
