Carla Fracci

"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."