Words matter. These are the best David Hallberg Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I love the dancers in the Bolshoi, but all of my Moscow friends are outside the company. A friend introduced me to Vika Gazinskaya, a well-known Russian designer. I met her group. The rest is history.
No one around me was obsessed with Fred Astaire except for me. It just snowballed, really. I started with tap lessons. When I didn’t have tap shoes, I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.
I stopped acting Romeo and just became Romeo.
Ballet is incestuous. This world is smaller than small.
The Bolshoi style is bigger and more emotional, in a way that I love. It has the freshness and intensity that is like what I’ve tried to achieve in my dance-acting roles.
Certainly, when you train as a classical dancer, you are very much influenced by ‘Giselle.’ You see it all the time; you start to learn the steps a little.
Because of the way I’m built, I constantly have to strengthen. This is sort of a ritual: I put on my tights first, and right when I’m about to put on my costume, I get down on the floor, and I plank.
I sew my own shoes. Other male dancers don’t, but I like it one way, and I’ve learned to do it that way.
If I can relay anything, it’s that if someone has a dream, and it isn’t the norm of what others are doing around you, it doesn’t matter. Reach for it. Go for it – because I’m a shining example of that.
There are certainly some artists in New York that I would love to work with. One is Sarah Michelson.
Having done so many versions, I never felt like an artist in ‘Swan Lake.’
New York at times runs me dry because there’s so much to do. There’s never enough time to do everything. It’s nice to have the balance in Moscow.
To be honest, my partner Natasha is my inspiration. She is who I reference when searching for my role. I don’t emulate what she does, but her interpretation of Giselle is so fragile and sensitive and so tender. It constantly inspires me. And I feel like it’s the other way around. We have a great rapport together.
I have one coach and one coach only. His name is Alexander Vetrov. They brought him in for me when I joined the Bolshoi. He was a dancer with the Bolshoi, and we work very intensely together.
Ballet needs figures that people can recognize and relate to. People don’t know ballet dancers as well as they know other artists.
