A Quote by Paulo Coelho
I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies
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Do you know what I've learned? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.
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.
It's going to take a while before we see a real shift in the students and the dancers that are going into professional companies because it takes so many years of training, but I do think that there's a new crop of dancers, of minority dancers that are entering into the ballet world.
When you train as a dancer, you understand you have to work exceptionally hard. I think dancers are the hardest - working people in show business. You have to push your body beyond where you thought it could go. It's athleticism. Perfection doesn't exist, but with classical ballet, there is an ideal, and I got obsessed with that ideal. In some ways, it was problematic because I don't have an ideal ballet body, but the discipline is what I carry with me to this day. That's my park, the discipline of dancing.
'The Firebird' just symbolizes a lot for me and my career. It was one of the first really big principal roles that I was ever given an opportunity to dance with American Ballet Theatre, and it was a huge step for the African-American community, I think, within the classical ballet world.
The worst thing about me is my toes. I've thick joints from wearing pointe ballet shoes - I went to a dance school from the age of 11 and danced every day.
It's nice for me to have a ballet as a kind of platform for creativity, because unlike modern dance or contemporary dance or downtown dance, ballet is formalized, and there's something orthodox about it that I like. I like that there's less emphasis on subversion and innovation. I actually think that my musical vernacular or my musical voice is also less inclined toward innovation and subversion. I think I'm a traditionalist.
I'm not fond of the idea of doing ballet for ballet's sake, because dancers get exploited and they're not paid well. They do it for the love.
I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.
You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age.
I'm a classical ballet dancer, and at the end of the day I want to be with American Ballet Theater, performing classical ballets.
You put music in categories because you need to define a sound, but when you don't play it on your so-called radio stations that claim to be R&B or jazz or whatever... All music is dance music. But when people think of dance music, they think of techno or just house. Anything you can dance to is dance music. I don't care if it's classical, funk, salsa, reggae, calypso; it's all dance music.
A producer wouldn't think of making a film about ballet dancers without using real dancers, but they will cast actors who have never held a bat in baseball films.
Ballet is a healthy world despite what people might think. There's a perception that ballet dancers are skinny and unhealthy, but that's rubbish. You have to be strong, so eating regularly and healthily is essential.
I was always the kid down the street who got the other kids to put on a show. But it was only when I was 19, and discovered ballet and contemporary dance, that I got interested in the fact that you could have a whole evening of dance - rather than just waiting for the dancers in a musical.
If I had to reflect on the finest classical male ballet dancers of my time, Vladimir Vasiliev of the Bolshoi and the Danish dancer Eric Bruhn were, I feel, without peer.
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