Dancer

I cannot stand authority.

I cannot stand authority.

To walk across the street is a risk.

Dancers are made, not born.

I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

In '74 it was really a very gloomy atmosphere, I would say, to put it mildly.

I don't go to a gym, I don't do yoga. I don't do personal training.

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing.

In the second part of life you get rid of stuff you've accumulated.

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.

I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying.

We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colonel. He was teaching in military academy military topography.

I'm a product of Russian culture, but I never felt it was my country.

I am a performer. I go on stage and make a fool of myself.

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.

I'm an impatient person in many respects. I like to put myself in uncomfortable situations. It forces me to deliver.

I'm a news junkie.

I miss horribly those couple of hours before the performance when you get into the theater and you see people.

I read Russian literature a lot.