I toured the Middle Eastern countries with the ballet.
I was a ballet dancer and that kind of bled into musical theater. I was constantly in rehearsal for one thing or another.
One of the few things in dance to match the Royal Ballet's curtain calls is the Royal Ballet's dancing.
The highest heels I do are six-inch heels - but mostly only dancers can wear them, since they are used to being on point in ballet shoes.
Everything seems to be going faster and faster. It's really harder to create something that endures. The New York City Ballet has succeeded in doing that.
Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.
I was kind of a loser at ballet school. It's all rich kids, and I was not a wealthy kid. I didn't have the Chanel butterfly clip everyone else did.
It's weird for minorities even just to buy tickets to the ballet. We feel like it's not a part of our lives and we're not a part of that world.
I remember once saying in a television interview that the only things I hadn't been in were the opera and the ballet. Two days later, I got a call from Lord Harewood, of the English National Opera, saying "Would you like to be in 'Ariadne auf Naxos?'"
I will say a lot of dancers do such beautiful things for their body and then they smoke a cigarette. I've never been a smoker, but I realized after taking yoga . . . in ballet you're not encouraged to do a lot of breathing. I think in a weird way, a lot of dancers find relief in actually breathing.
If a ballet dancer falls over, it's knowing how to get out looking clumsy that counts.
You know, ballet might be too formal of a title for the type of dance I do, but I love to dance.
I love ballet, and it's a little boring for me to go to the gym because I'm used to the dancing discipline - it's really hard but much more fun.
You can't drink on an eight hour flight, pass out, and then go onstage... well you can, but then you're Spandau Ballet.
Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.
Dancing is a tough career, but I'm glad I spent it at the Royal Ballet.
My philosophy on choreography is that the making of a ballet is a team effort, and we're in this together. It's not me hammering on them. It's more about how we can elevate this piece collectively to something great.
I always feel that the mark of a good ballet is that when you see it more than once, you get more out of it.
I am both proud and honored to be on the Board of Directors for the Texas Ballet Theater.
I was a dancer from a young age. My parents were dancers; we were taken to a lot of ballet as children. It occurred to me that what I liked more than dancing the steps was acting the story of whatever particular performance I was taking part in.
A lot of people have a lot of faith in Karole Armitage. They see her as bold, inventive, indefatigable. 'America isn't working out? There's always Europe. Ballet? No? Go modern. Keep going! Show 'em!'
I had to do a tango with Raft and I learned to dance in ballet shoes with my knees bent.
I have a personal trainer. But I tried boxing; I tried ballet. I tried everything to see what works best for my body.
My mother never learned English, but in Russia, the greatest thing was to give a child to the arts. And so they gave me to the ballet.
Russians are very discerning about ballet. They're very opinionated about what classical ballet is.
The New York City Ballet is always about the realm of possibilities, the realm of what the human body can do, what the human spirit can do. And it's about listening, it's about listening to remarkable music and how we respond to that.
The Kirov is a great ballet company because it has so many terrific dancers, but it doesn't always know what to do with them.
The particular ballet was not so important as the fact that I was physically healthy, and capable of getting out there and dancing as often as possible.
I hated the ballet, but I liked performing. I did 20 shows, and I couldn't get the smile off my face.
If you have to tell a story without speaking, it's sort of like - I come from a dance background, so it's like a ballet where you have to tell a story with just your body. I think that's really interesting to have to tell a story with just your face and your mannerisms, and I'd like to tap into that world.
I didn't really know anything about Margot Fonteyn. I'd never really been a ballet child, so I had no idea what an incredibly huge icon she was, not just in terms of a creative icon - she was also a style icon. I had no idea she was up there with Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Onassis in terms of that kind of image.
To me, dance and ballet are not so accessible.
Ballet is sort of a mystery to me. And I don't want to unravel that mystery.
I had never picked up a basketball before. I went through a grueling audition process. It was almost as if I was learning to walk. It would be like teaching somebody to dance ballet for a role.
Ballet companies have their ups and downs, just like the rest of us.
I went away when I was 9 to a ballet school. I thought I wanted to be a dancer, but eight years of ballet cured me of that.
