I was sent to ballet classes when I was a little girl. I wasn't very good, but it's that thing where little girls always try ballet, or whatever.
With classical ballet you are literally injuring yourself.
Figure skating has been a great influence for me. I took dance at the School of American Ballet, which helped my own skating. And whether you are a skater or a dancer, without sounding narcissistic, it is all about looking in the mirror.
The first show I did was 'The Nutcracker' ballet. I was one of the kids who comes out in the beginning.
Ballet was so structured. I'd been craving something that could guide me.
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in the early fall, having cut down on the relentlessly long spring season when dancers, critics and audiences droop on the vine, we wake up after the dog days of August with something to look at.
Once you become a professional, to get through a ballet like 'Swan Lake' - four acts as the lead, changing character - the perseverance is incredible. It takes a lot to make it through and keep the same energy throughout the entire performance.
Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty.
I had been a ballet dancer and never could make a living, and just being so excited that I got to, all of a sudden, live as an actor.
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind?
I began with dance, doing ballet at 3, then tap, jazz, modern. Then I sang in church choirs, learned how to play clarinet and drums, sang with rock bands and only then did I get into musical theatre.
I love New York. I was in New York at the age of 13, at the School of American Ballet, walking around the subways in my little bunhead and thinking I was so cool.
When you can't follow a ballet's action, you can always read the program notes.
I was real into theater, and then I tried soccer, acting and ballet. Both my parents didn't want a child-star model, so I didn't get into modeling until I was 14.
My favorite workouts are the ones that don't feel like I'm working out! So, dance is a big one. Another is any kind of isolated moves, like ballet moves. Anything that works the glutes and legs - sign me up! And I like to blast the music. I have to get lost in the music. That helps.
Ballet is incestuous. This world is smaller than small.
Ballet really taught me so much about the power of movement.
Don't hold on to the barre like, 'I might die.' It's just ballet.
I have done the company lifestyle for 16 years, and ballet has changed.
My genuine passion for dance was born watching Ballet Rambert perform Christopher Bruce's harrowing 'Ghost Dances.'