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.
Yes, I'm a proud Latina woman, but before that - before the color of my skin, my accent, anything - I'm an actress, singer and dancer. I'm something bigger than just my background.
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.
I like my feet. I have a tattoo on my foot with my last name. They're dancer feet. They're pretty. My toes are proportioned nicely. And they're strong - I can pinch people with my toes.
As much as I love to dance, and I still take class, aerobics and that sort of thing, and I still move very well and all of that - I'm really not a dancer anymore.
Fred Astaire was my dream dancer.
I was a late bloomer, but I had a career as a contemporary dancer before that, so I had some kind of connection to this world. But I was always a little more in love with the drama of dancing than the aesthetics, so I thought, 'Why don't you give it a chance if you think you can do it a little different?'
I taught and studied dance in college, and for over a decade, I thought that would be my career: tap dancer, ballet dancer, modern dancer. I still find myself doing some tumbling or interpretive dancing in the grocery store every now and then.
As a dancer I've always checked my body constantly; 'Am I having a good day or am I having a fat day?'
I did community theater in Georgia and called myself a ballet dancer.
I never thought of myself as a Broadway actress. I'm not really a singer or a dancer.
For a performer, passion is far more important than technical skills. If a dancer's leg isn't at a perfect angle, I can see past that, but if someone's dead in the face, it's really boring.
As long as there are dancers around who love to dance, there will be an Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. We miss him so much, but he's alive as soon as you see a dancer hit the stage.
I wanted to be an Ailey dancer. I would watch Alvin Ailey videos over and over, and I'd picture myself doing that. I was obsessed with it.
It's an unfortunate reality of being a male dancer that it's not really looked upon... it's not appreciated.
I had a wonderful childhood, coming from Cincinnati, and I think that it was great going into the life that I was going to have, where you have to start young as a dancer.
You are an athlete if you are a dancer.
I remember when I was a dancer and I had to do this performance and I was really nervous about it, and I happened at that moment to go see 'Flashdance.' I mean, it's silly, but I walked out of that movie going 'what a feeling!' I walked out with confidence.
Maddie Ziegler is the most amazing dancer I've ever seen, and I'm so obsessed with her. I was obsessed with her even before she did her first Sia video.
I'm more a percussion instrument than a dancer.
I'd always been a very focused dancer and very protected.
I was a dancer, so for me, if I don't work out for a week or move my body in some sense, I feel weird.
When you're a dancer who is injured, you are at the bottom of the food chain. We are so replaceable.
My problem is: as a singer and a dancer, if I get it in my body one way, it is harder for me to be open to something new - to something else; to something that is really organically connected to the piece and not just to my perception of it.
40 years old is about the time a principal dancer would start to think about retirement, but some go on to dance a little bit longer than that.
I'm obviously always interested in the dancer who's an athlete and vice versa. I expect dancers to be in condition like an athlete is and to challenge themselves in the same way, to the same physical degree.
I'm always very nervous about the word 'dancer' next to my name because anyone who's really trained in dance will go, 'This guy's fudging so badly.'
I was a freestyle dancer; I wasn't trained.
I've always been a figure skater and ballet dancer. I love physical comedy, and any chance that I get to do that... that is so me.
I would never do 'Dancing With The Stars,' because it's just not fair. I am too good of a dancer. It would be like LeBron James playing little league basketball.
I was a dancer until I was 19. I never had to worry about working out or what I ate. So I've really had to train myself to get down to the gym.
When I was a dancer, I would see that dancers were treated like garbage. I mean like, like extras.
The physical DNA has always been part of our family. My dad was a good boxer and gymnast; my mum is a ballroom dancer, and my brother does martial arts.
Because I was a dancer when I was a kid, I have so much empathy for these young girls who are so drawn to something lovely in music and in movement, and yet they encounter a world full of judgment and criticism of 11-year-old artists and bodies.
For a long time, I said I didn't want to model. I was a dancer.
I walk like a duck: very straight up and down. Or like a penguin. It's a dead giveaway that I'm a dancer.
