A Quote by Sylvie Guillem

I was afraid when I came to the Royal Ballet that it would be easy to have everyone walking all over me if I didn't stick up for myself. — © Sylvie Guillem
I was afraid when I came to the Royal Ballet that it would be easy to have everyone walking all over me if I didn't stick up for myself.
One of the few things in dance to match the Royal Ballet's curtain calls is the Royal Ballet's dancing.
I have learned a great deal from the theatrical side of Covent Garden. The Paris Opera Ballet is more concerned with technique. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's well done. But it lacks the theatrical tradition that is so important in England. At the Royal Ballet, absolutely everyone on stage seems to be caught up in the plot.
I was probably around 14 or 15 when I became really conscious of those girls who were going on to the Royal Ballet school, and that I was not Royal Ballet school material, not by a long stretch.
I'm so happy that I ventured out beyond the Royal Ballet - which is my home, and I love it - but I would never have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone.
I've been treated really well for 'Stick It.' There was this cop and he pulled me over and he was like, 'Oh my God, you're in 'Stick It.' I said, 'Yes. Yes. You're the last person I would think would be pumped up by this movie'. He let me go, so that was nice.
For a long time everyone had a stereotype of ballet that it was easy and that we were just prancing around. But thanks to the Internet, and being able to share live performances and broadcast them to the world so that everyone can experience the ballet, I think it's inspiring people we wouldn't normally be able to reach.
There was a lot of pressure to find a genre and stick to it. People would tell me all the time, 'You can't be all things to everyone.' I would say, 'I'm not trying to be! I'm being what I want to be for myself.'
I had classical training at London's Royal Ballet School, and my first job was with the Semperoper Dresden ballet company in Germany.
Your body can dictate your mind, so when I walk to a fight a lot of times I'm scared, I'm scared to death, I have a lot of doubts of myself, I'm afraid to fail, I'm afraid to be humiliated in front of everybody; but what happens, I act like it's impossible for me to fail and that my victory is a certainty. So as I'm walking to the Octagon and I act with confidence my body takes over my mind and I become confident for real. As I'm walking I see the change in my mind and when I reach the Octagon I'm a different person, I'm very confident.
The truth was that I'd been spending years running away from myself. I hid myself in drama, silliness, stupidity, banality. So afraid to grow up. So afraid to involve myself in relationships where I might be expected to give the same love I got - instead of sixth-grade shenanigans. I bored myself with all the when I grow up nonsense, but I was worried it would never happen even as I longed for it.
Fonteyn was our first proper British ballerina, and from the moment I started dancing, her image engulfed me. In my first year at the Royal Ballet School, Margot's statue was outside my dormitory. Like generations of budding ballet dancers before me, I used to touch her middle finger for luck.
It takes uncommon guts to stick to one style in the face of all the pressures to 'come up with something new' every six months. It is tragically easy to be stampeded into change. But golden rewards await the advertiser who has the brains to create a coherent image, and the stability to stick with it over a long period.
I keep a $2 bill rolled up in every pair of boots I own because one time, an older guy came up to me at a farmer's market I was playing in Memphis, handed me a $2 bill, and said, 'Stick this in your boot.' And when I stood back up, he handed me a $100 bill and said, 'Thanks for listening to me. Stick this in your pocket.'
When I was younger, I would mess about and have a laugh with everyone. I was doing Atonement when I was about 12, and as we went to do this very serious scene, the director Joe [Wright] came up to me ... I'd been giggling right up to the beginning of the take. And he came up to me and said, "Okay, you need to be serious now." I completely idolized him.
I was once walking in an airport and a woman came up to me and said, 'Be zany!'. That'd be like walking up to Baryshikov and going, 'Plie! Just do a plie! Do it! Do a releve right now! Lift my wife!'
I meant I’m not afraid of love being difficult. If it was easy, then everyone would find it.
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