dancers-from-italy

"My mother revealed what they found so extraordinary about my belly button: "They like it because it's a Bolognese belly button.""

"Raffaella Carrà was one of the symbols of Italian television, perhaps its most beloved personality. She will be missed by millions of viewers who loved her for her style and by all those who, like me, had the opportunity to know her and work with her. I loved her very much. With her programmes, she was able to speak to very different generations, having the ability to always keep up with the times and never resorting to vulgarity."

"I would like to know why I, raised by a single mother, couldn't have a child as a single woman! I even thought about becoming Spanish."

"I'm glad I didn't get big-headed, I have a lot of self-irony. You have to be at peace with yourself to do this job."

"Mina was not, but she is. Mina did not “leave a mark”, but she leaves one every day. [4]"

"(About Mina) When I was asked to celebrate her birthday, I thought about the value of the present and the past, and I realised that the imperfect or recent past tenses are not suitable for her. The right tense is the present indicative."

"I will die without knowing. On my tombstone, I will write: ‘Why did gay people like me so much?’[3]"

"Siempre voto comunista."

"I am quite obsessive about order and cleanliness at home, but I don't ask people to take their shoes off before coming in or to smoke cigarettes with their heads out of the window. I like to live in spaces and tidy them up, which is a bit like what happens every evening at the Bar. Discomfort and enthusiasm drive everything I do. The former should be understood as not feeling up to the task and always out of place, but this feeling of being a bit uncomfortable has helped me grow. As soon as I feel comfortable and a goal is easily achievable, I get bored and want to change. I still have to work on this."

"I am a slave to my enthusiasm: when I lose it, I have to find a way to rekindle it. When dance became a job and there was nothing left for me to discover, it came naturally to me to turn to television. That's how I am: if I'm uncomfortable, I enjoy myself; if I'm comfortable, I get bored. I like to learn, to apply myself to things I don't know how to do well. I would like to be able to do more things at the same time. I'm not good at multitasking, I think in silos and it's something I can't stand about myself. I am privileged, I do what I love and yes, today I am a very happy man."

"Growing up, sarcasm and irony helped me overcome my shyness. My dad was a dancer at the San Carlo theatre in Naples, and as a child I loved watching him perform, but I never thought of pursuing the same career. In my opinion, Naples is “the worst most beautiful city in the world”. I find magic in its contradictions. It is a unique city, where I would choose to be reborn if I could. And I love looking at it from the sea: it is poetic."

"I have learned to take responsibility. When you are assigned a task, you have to complete it. That is the gratification of having done and learned something. I was top of the class in primary school, tenth in middle school, and last in high school."

"I am not obsessed with my career. I have a very long-term view of my work, and this helps me to live everything with commitment, but without anxiety. I experienced a lot of exposure as a young man and I understood the disadvantages. To improve, you have to practise; to take off, you need many hours of flight time. There is nothing healthier than study and application. I achieved important goals early on, but I love this job so much that I don't want it to wear me out."

"I was born at a time when computers and video games were not widely used. I played in the street, a bit of football, and rode my bike. At home, I used a wooden strummolo, a sort of spinning top that I spun with a string and stopped with a bottle cap. When I was very young, my father took me to the beach and we had fun in the water or building sandcastles. When I got older, my grandfather taught me how to play cards. But I never managed to win a game of scopa or briscola with him. Grandfather was incredible. When we played hide and seek as children, one of us would inevitably get hurt and shout “stop the game”. And that was the end of it. I wish that today this “stop” could be used to stop the war."

"Dance is poetry because its ultimate goal is to express feelings, even if through a rigid technique. Our task is to convey words through movement."

"There was once a word that I am proud of and that is part of my childhood: proletariat. Unfortunately, no one uses it anymore. [...] It is the proletariat that has always sustained the nation. There should be more respect. If this social class stops, the nation falls. Today, however, everyone has turned against the tram drivers, but they only noticed them when they stopped working."

"I had extraordinary encounters, such as Visconti, gruff and very sweet. Like Herbert Ross, for whom I played Karsavina in the film Nijinsky. Or like Peter Ustinov, with whom I filmed Le ballerine (The Ballerinas). And Cederna, and Manzù. And the magnificent Eduardo. At a gala in his honour in Viareggio, I played Filumena Marturano, Titina's role, and he sent me a note saying, “Now I can call you sister”. I remember the charm and irony of Vittorio De Sica. He wanted to give me the role in La vacanza that Bolkan ended up playing. And I remember the summers with Montale in Forte dei Marmi. Every day we would meet people like Henry Moore, Marino Marini, Guttuso. Montale was always drawing: the sea, the Apuan Alps... He used everything, from wine to lipstick. He dedicated a beautiful poem to me: La danzatrice stanca (The Tired Dancer). No, at seventy I don't feel tired at all. And I am who I am thanks to them."

"I danced in marquees, churches and squares. I was a pioneer of decentralisation. I didn't want my work to be elitist, relegated to the golden boxes of opera theatres. And even when I was busy on the world's most important stages, I always came back to Italy to perform in the most forgotten and unimaginable places. Rudolf Nureyev would scold me: why are you doing this, you're getting too tired, you come from New York and you have to go to, I don't know, Budrio... But I liked it that way, and the audience always rewarded me."

"When Alicia Markova came to dance at La Scala, she must have been 45 years old. The other girls called her the old lady. To me, she was fantastic. Such nobility, such enchanting little feet."

"[Why did you agree to dubbing?] I want to fill my personal and business baggage as much as possible. Basically I'm very curious about everything around me. Lending my voice to an animated film has always been one of those things I wanted to do. I still enjoyed it so much! Luckily I had a great professional by my side like Marco Guadagno who gave me strength and tried to unlock me in some points. It was very interesting and I'm happy with it."

"In dance as in life, no one is perfect. If I think about how many girls who have hidden dreams that they cannot realize because they are not considered suitable, it makes me very angry. In fact, I have a project in mind on this very theme."

"[You have been bullied. You even came home with a cropped jacket. How do you get over this?] It's hard. I thought it was my fault, I kept it all inside. I got over it just by talking about it. Starting to accept myself and to understand that neither I nor the one who offended me is wrong."

"[What relationship do you have with your body, as a young woman who also uses it as an artistic tool?] I was skinny and hiding in a large sweatshirt so as not to show it. My mother was worried: If you don't eat, stings. Maybe it was true. Then I learned to care for it, caress it, I discovered its movement, strength, falls, shooting, but above all uniqueness. If you think about it, flaws aren't really flaws. Freckles are cool, cool is the dot on your forehead, even the birthmark so visible on your nose, do not correct the space that opens your teeth, it is only yours, maybe you should treat it as a rarity and think that in reality you are a ' artwork."

"For a long time I felt wrong: in the mirror I saw these crooked teeth, a bit of hair, thin lips. Now I have learned that the beauty lies in those details. Even in the little space I have between my teeth. My relationship with make-up has also changed: before I couldn't see myself without make-up, I used it as a mask to hide flaws. It makes me angry that many talented dancers still can't find work today because they are a little more curvy. Things are different abroad and hopefully soon in Italy too."

"I keep anger inside, I don't throw it out. It rises when I see someone belittling someone else to value themselves, who emphasizes differences that there are not by criticizing a person who may not be white in skin, homosexual friends. They also alienated me because I had them. But I understood that ignorance is like a stone, you can throw anything at it, but it doesn't break."

"[Mi manca] il calore delle persone [italiane]: c’è una grande facilità nella comunicazione, mentre i francesi non sono così estroversi. D’altra parte, in Francia c’è una grande vivacità nel mondo del cinema: si producono almeno duecento film all’anno e le occasioni di lavoro sono moltissime. Purtroppo non c’è paragone col cinema italiano."

"Pure in Francia è un ambiente tradizionalmente schierato a sinistra e fa molto chic essere anti-Sarkozy. Ma la cosiddetta "sinistra-caviale", cioè quella snob con la puzza sotto il naso, mi fa schifo, è ipocrita."

"Even in France, politics are traditionally left-wing and it is fashionable to be anti-Sarkozy. But the so called "caviar-left", that is, the snobbish, stiff upper-lipped kind disgusts me, it is hypocritical."

"I am overjoyed, but I repeat: it is not my country which awards me. In Italy, those who make a name for themselves in other countries are ignored."

"Ne sono lusingata, ma ripeto: non è il mio paese a darmela. In Italia, chi si fa valere all'estero non viene considerato."

"[Claude Lelouch] has always told me : "Madame, you shall be my widow!" I married him thinking that he had learned something from life. Big mistake: he gets married and sires children like he drinks a glass of water! … Claude is a man with an oversized ego. Just as he wishes to always be the master of the situation, he acts like a dictator and everyone has to agree with him. I, on the contrary, always told him the truth..."

"[Claude Lelouch] m’a toujours dit : «Madame, vous serez ma veuve!» Je l’ai épousé en croyant qu’il avait forcément appris quelque chose de la vie. Erreur totale: il se marie et fait des enfants comme on boit un verre d’eau! … Claude est un homme à l’ego surdimensionné. Comme il veut toujours rester maître des situations, il se comporte comme un dictateur et tout le monde se met au garde à vous et lui donne raison. Moi, au contraire, je lui ai toujours dit la vérité..."

"[I miss] the warmth of the [Italian] people: it is very easy to communicate with them, while the French are not such extroverts. On the other hand, there is a vibrant film industry in France: at least two hundred films are produced there, and the job opportunities are many. Unfortunately, the Italian film industry does not compare."