Choreographers

"This is one of the great things about this show is that we've really explored a totally new thing which is lyrical hip-hop and [Tabitha and Napoleon] nail it... It shows you that hip-hop [has] completely become a really legitimate beautiful genre in and of its own and you can tell such beautiful and heart breaking stories."

"When you can tell the story of the song through your movement, it's brilliant. It comes across as so honest and not fake."

"Why would you want to be back-up dancer when you could be the actual star? Let's show the world that we're stars. Let's perform like stars."

"There's a life to dance that has to happen and it was seen years ago with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and the life and the feeling they had in a performance. And when you watch them and you see them and you start to sway with them and you start to move with them and you miss that sometimes and that's what needs to happen with dance again."

"Somewhere in the world of dance we started thinking about steps way too much: technique, steps, technique, steps. You can do all the technique you want, the regular public doesn't know. All they know is how you perform and what you tell them and what you make them feel; and when you make somebody feel something, it is undeniable."

"This time in dance, this era, is probably one of the most entertaining times. It's got this whole new style of hip-hop which encompasses 20 different styles within it. There's no boundaries to it so people are taking it to the next level. And I think as an audience, everyone is saying Whoa, that is energetic. That is gymnastics, that is dancing, and that's entertainment combined in one. And that's a beautiful thing."

"We see people who dance really well and can't perform all the time. It's in our community, our dance community. It's like that because we've been doing back-up dancing for so long. We're always in the background of the movies and we're always behind the artist so our job is not to outshine the artist. Well now, with all these dance television shows, we're getting a chance to be the artist. We're on the forefront. We're the Gene Kellys and the Fred Astaires of this generation and it's our job to make people feel something and to really perform."

"Dance is not an internal thing. You have to be able to give to somebody else visually watching or they won't care. If they don't leave with some type of emotional feeling—whether it be you cry, or you laugh, or you jump in the air for joy—then it becomes movement and we haven't done our job."

"I think the future of dance is where we came from, where the dancers are the stars and I see in the next ten years dancers being these huge stars and the movie musical coming back."

"I think they're all equally hard. They all have their own techniques and when you don't train in that technique then it's difficult. Y'know, especially for somebody in a ballroom who's use to stepping heal-to-toe and they get into a jazz routine and they're up on relevé the whole time. So everything has its own technique and when you get use to one way, it's difficult to switch."

"We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance."

"(Women you respect most?) Georgia O'Keeffe, Martha Graham. For reasons plain to all-among them, common to both, an inviolate independence of spirit in pursuing their arts, the wholeness of their gifts of the imagination."

"Some of you are doomed to be artists."

"Movement never lies."

"I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies — bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique. You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels — a leaf feels, a storm feels — what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech."

"To me, the body says what words cannot. I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it's communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people. Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body. And it's partly the language that we don't want to show."

"Dancing is very like poetry. It's like poetic lyricism, sometimes, it's like the rawness of dramatic poetry, it's like the terror — or it can be like a terrible revelation of meaning. Because when you light on a word it strikes you to your heart."

"I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do. One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian."

"I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. I can correct it and tell them what they have done after they have done it, and what it means to me. But I don't say, "Be fearful here," "Be angry here," because I think that is intrusion."

"To me, the only sin is mediocrity."

"I've always regarded eroticism as a beautiful word. I'm not ashamed to be linked to it. I would be ashamed to be linked to flamboyant sexuality; that's a part of life, but it isn't all of it."

"The erotic element is life, but doesn't have to absorb you, it doesn't have to be a naughty word. It's the love of life in many ways."

"I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture."

"Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery — what it all means…"

"When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it's the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography."

"I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination."

"The body is a sacred garment: it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honour, and with joy and with fear as well. But always, though, with blessing."

"I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of mankind — the landscape of the human soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human being can be."

"The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle."

"People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose: I was chosen to be a dancer, and, with that, you live all your life."

"The main thing, of course, always, is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost. Ambition is not enough; necessity is everything."

"The body is shaped, disciplined, honoured, and in time, trusted. The movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life — the law which governs the outer aspects."

"Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths. Then I need all the comfort that practice has stored in my memory, a tenacity of faith."

"Many times I hear the phrase "the dance of life." It is an expression that touches me deeply, for the instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived — the human body."

"The most brilliant scientific discoveries will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete as new scientific manifestations emerge. But art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man."

"I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living."

"To practice means to perform, in the face of all obstacles some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired."

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance of a dedicated set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes the shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some areas an athlete of God."

"I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."

"Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion."

"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. ... No artist is pleased. [There is] no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

"When I was younger, I got into a lot of trouble. Getting the opportunity to dance really got me out of that.”"

"Jumps and turns aren't hard; artistry is. To create a whole new world for the audience, that's the fantasy of ballet."

"The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story, we’re so past that. I have a very deep respect for art, but I also think we have a lot to learn from pop culture. And that is the future. Either you can ignore it and be stuck in the past, or you can learn from it."

"Book/Play1 (Book/Play1)"

"Book/Play2 (Book/Play2)"

"He just walked away like he was God's gift to the world."

"You dance as if you've already won the competition."

"I think you're talking crap."

"I don’t even know if I’ll ever feel what I did when he finished dancing his solo on Wednesday night’s [2007-08-15] show. When he left the ballet world, he was losing his love of dance, and to me, watching that solo, he came full circle. He came back.”"