So many people report to be contemporary dancers, and they're not. They are sort of jazz dancers that feel like they're throwing a bit of classical in there. I mean, a true contemporary dancer has got ballet as their base and classical ballet, and that is their base. And then they choose to extemporize on that and go into a contemporary world.
My mother was the influence on me - my father was absent. He was a diamond dealer; he was doing wonderful things in the background, and women were left at home. So my mother really was in charge of everything: the ballet, dance lessons, piano lessons, and latkes.
I have a ballet barre in my gym. I turn the music up so loud that the walls are pulsating, and I go for it for an hour.
There would never have been a British Ballet without Diaghilev. He had a wonderful influence.
I always wanted to act and sing, but my first love was ballet.
I have always loved fashion because it's a great way to express your mood. And I'm definitely a shoe lover. The right pair of shoes can change the feel of an outfit, and even change how a woman feels about herself. A woman can wear confidence on her feet with a high stiletto, or slip into weekend comfort with a soft ballet flat.
The music industry is so easy compared to the ballet world.
I used to dance when I was younger - ballet and modern dance.
Ballet is completely unnatural to the body, just being turned-out... it's not the way your body is supposed to function, so you actually train your body to be a different structure than you were born with.
The ballet embodies the notes of music. And sometimes you almost feel like you can see the notes dance up there on the stage.
I do after-school ballet and also hip-hop and jazz.
Mum, who had been a dancer with a small ballet company before she got married, was full of encouragement. She didn't say, 'This is really good, you should do this', She just encouraged us to do whatever we liked.
I wanted so badly to study ballet, but it was really all about wearing the tutu.
Mr. Balanchine was a great gentleman, and he loved his dancers. He was devoted to his company. He came to the ballet every night, and his presence was felt. It was like the whole company was dancing for him. And if he liked you, he trusted you to be yourself. He didn't try to change you and make you into something you were not.
God comes to us in theater in the way we communicate with each other, whether it be a symphony orchestra, or a wonderful ballet, or a beautiful painting, or a play. It's a way of expressing our humanity.
When Disney was creating Elsa, they based a lot of her movements on that of a ballerina, which was interesting for me to find out because I actually did ballet years ago. That definitely informed some of the ways I made her walk and move.
Like most citizens of popular and international urban centres, I don't take advantage of the cultural opportunities. Perhaps this comes from growing up in suburbia. Home is where you eat, sleep, read, watch television and ignore your parents. It is not where you go to the ballet and then attend a heated panel discussion about it afterwards.
It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.
So I'm studying ballet every day and really training so people will see me as a ballet dancer, which no one's seen before.
I've been dancing all my life and studied at Joffrey Ballet when I was 13 and singing all my life.
All the New York City Ballet does is hit beautiful home runs.
My mother danced; she loved the ballet.
However, the moral center of New York City, I believe, is the New York City Ballet.
Does the New York City Ballet affect other places? Yeah, it lets people know they should come to New York.
My first mentor and inspiration was my Irish Dancing teacher Patricia Mulholland. She created her own form of dance known as Irish ballet and created stage productions of old Irish myths and legends. They were my first experiences on stage. She told my mum I was destined for the stage, and I took that as my cue.
The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.
Ballet pumps are the dream shoes because they are so comfortable. They look great both with jeans and summer dresses; and you can even wear the right pair with an evening gown.
In fact, ballet companies did not exist in the Midwest when I was a child.
I was serious about ballet for a long time, but my mom got me into tap and jazz and modern and hip-hop, and I was one of those over-lessoned children.
City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away and, in the great tradition of the Cheshire Cat, there's nothing left but Peter Martins' smile.
I didn't care too much for ballet, because you had to be more disciplined, and you sort of looked like everyone else. It required a certain kind of conformity that I didn't feel like I wanted to do.
Being in ballet class, being on the stage, being surrounded by my peers at American Ballet Theater every day, keeps me so humble and grounded. Being in ballet class, I feel, is like this meditation for me every morning.
When I was five years old, I told my parents that I wanted to take ballet. So, ballet was the focus of my life... until puberty. Then I discovered boys and started dating a guy with a mohawk who'd come to my ballet class and freak everybody out. Shortly after that is when I quit.
You realize you can get good at something, even though ballet almost felt like you could never be good enough. No matter how hard you worked, it was so hard to be a great dancer.
I wanted to be a ballet teacher.
I want to be a lawyer, a dancer, an actress, a mother, a wife, a children's author, a distance runner, a poet, a pianist, a pet store owner, an astronaut, an environmental and humanitarian activist, a psychiatrist, a ballet teacher, and the first woman president.
