Southern people are raised with a work ethic. My son is 5 years old and does chores. My mom was a dance teacher, and the training and discipline it takes to be a dancer I've carried with me in Hollywood.
I'm not a great dancer. I know I'm not. But I know that I can move. I can throw shapes, just not in the right order.
My dad was a third-generation printer and linotype operator, by all accounts a fabulous ballroom dancer. He was jettisoned from the family before I was 2, and I have never met him and have no memory of him.
I grew up in New York, and I've always been surrounded by fashion. My grandmother used to write for 'Vogue' in the '50s, and my mother was a dancer and a model.
I've always been a bit of an orphan, because actors say, 'Well, he's more of a dancer.' And dancers say, 'No. He's really a singer.' And singers say, 'No. He's an actor.'
When I first moved to New York, I wanted to be a dancer. I danced professionally for years, living a hand-to-mouth existence. I never tapped into nightlife; all I knew was dancers. We went to bed early and got up early and went to free concerts at the Lincoln Center and Shakespeare in the Park.
Who am I? I'm a man, an American, a father, a teacher, but most of all, I am a person who knows how the arts can change lives, because they transformed mine. I was a dancer.
I'm a dancer, so I do four hours of dance a week of ballet, jazz, hip hop, contemporary. I also play the piano and I just started learning the guitar.
When I was a dancer, I felt this great sense of knowing my body and being in my body, and I think it's really easy as women to lose that and not really be one and loving it.
A young girl reached out to me to be her mentor one day, which I didn't really know anything about. What I did remember was what it was to be alone as an African-American dancer in the ballet world and wanting to connect with someone who looks like me.
The drinker is a Dionysiac, a dancer who sits still, a mocker. He doesn't need your seriousness or your regard. He just needs a little quiet music and a gentle freedom from priests.
I had wanted to be a dancer when I was younger. But at some point I figured out I was a better singer.
Who a dancer is physically feeds into character for me. Always has.
I listen to all sorts of music, but I'm not musically talented. Everyone expects me to be a good singer or musician, but I really am terrible. I'm a great dancer, though.
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.
I was a Spanish dancer. I don't mean to put that down, because that was great, too, but nothing like the kind of dancing you had to do in 'West Side Story,' which was called jazz.
I wanted to inspire every little girl who wants to be a dancer to fire their imagination about the joys of being on the stage.
When I first came to New York I was a dancer, and a French record label offered me a recording contract and I had to go to Paris to do it. So I went there and that's how I really got into the music business. But I didn't like what I was doing when I got there, so I left, and I never did a record there.
There are positives to moving around and changing companies: you put things in perspective; you can compare living and working conditions. Living in one city, you tend to take things for granted; your view is much more narrow. In Europe, a dancer can leave for a year and still keep her original contract.
I'm not a singer, and I'm not a brilliant dancer.
I was always active as a kid. I was a professional figure skater for many years and I was a dancer, so it's just been part of my life, and I think that creates a certain body type.
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.
Certainly the life of a dancer is very difficult. The training is very hard and relentlessly grueling.
I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music.
I started out as a dancer as a kid; I've been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.
I'm a pretty decent tap dancer. I enjoy all types of dancing, actually.
You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreographer or a dancer, and there's an informative, clear image of a dancer. This is, in my view, not an interesting photograph.
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.
I think body-image issues are not just a dancer thing. I think we're much more in tune and aware because the body is our instrument and art, and we stare at ourselves in a mirror all day, but I feel like it's something that every woman experiences and every girl experiences.
I've never been innocent, but I don't think I'm a bad kid! I didn't get voted prom king. I was kind of the dancer, the performer, but I was always very athletic, too.
I've got that personality where I've always been determined. As a dancer, I was constantly improving and perfecting. I guess it's innate.
When you're a dancer, you start with the basics. You don't all of a sudden do a grand jete and pirouette. You start with first position, second, third.
I never studied dance, but if you look at 'Wild At Heart,' my mother saw that movie and said, 'You are a dancer. Look at how you're moving: all that strange energy is like modern dance.'
A friend of my mother's, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, 'Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?' There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that's so much a part of being a performer.
I'm no dancer. I got rhythm, I can dance if I need to, but I'm not Chris Brown. He's an amazing dancer. If I'm not going to be amazing at it, I'm not gon' do it. I'm gonna do what works for me, and you're going to feel it 'cause it's me.
I was a dancer for many years. I was a premier dancer with 'Porgy and Bess,' the opera. And I taught dance some, in different places.
