If anyone is calling me to choreograph a dance, they know my style, and they know I am a taskmaster. They want to present themselves as a good dancer before their fans, and that is why they want me to choreograph.
I’m not a great dancer.
I can take a beginner kid that has never danced in their lives, and I can teach them something, or I can take a really advanced dancer, and I can make them into a professional.
I was never a dancer before ‘Shake It Up’.
For what the horse does under compulsion, as Simon also observes, is done without understanding; and there is no beauty in it either, any more than if one should whip and spur a dancer.
I’ve been very physical my whole life. I went out hiking and camping for days in the Australian forest, and when I trained at drama school for three years, we did a whole lot on stage-fighting techniques. And I was a dancer from 5 to 18, so I have a memory for choreography.
If I had an extra 20 or 50 years physically, I could have been the dancer of my dreams. But I never became that dancer.
Something about being a dancer connects you to your physical body. It’s primal, earthy, sexual energy by nature. You feel your body in a certain way. Channing is very much the same way. He’s very in tune with that.
Anybody cannot be a dancer. A dancer must have a certain posture, gestures, height, behaviour.
Shaq is just a goofy dancer. He’s just silly.
I was a dancer from a young age. My parents were dancers; we were taken to a lot of ballet as children. It occurred to me that what I liked more than dancing the steps was acting the story of whatever particular performance I was taking part in.
A friend of my mother’s, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, ‘Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?’ There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that’s so much a part of being a performer.
It’s very difficult to switch back and forth between running rehearsals and then stepping in to dance in rehearsals as a dancer. Just to switch hats in an instant can be a little bit jarring, mostly physically, on the body.
I’m not a huge dancer onstage. In fact, I like not moving at all if I don’t have to. But even just standing up for any given amount of time in 6-inch heels ends up leaving me feeling like I’ve been cracked in half like a rag doll after a few shows.
I am the ‘Cosmic Dancer’ who dances his way out of the womb and into the tomb on ‘Electric Warrior.’ I’m not frightened to get up there and groove about in front of six million people on TV because it doesn’t look cool. That’s the way I would do it at home.
I like my feet. I have a tattoo on my foot with my last name. They’re dancer feet. They’re pretty. My toes are proportioned nicely. And they’re strong – I can pinch people with my toes.
I started out as a dancer as a kid; I’ve been dancing since I was 4. So performing was always part of what I was.
I actually wanted to be a dancer, though I doubt anyone now would pay to see me in a leotard!
I grew up wanting to be a ballet dancer.
Let’s not call physical comedy falling down and pratfalls. All humor is physical, no matter how you dish it out. It’s timing, like a dancer or an athlete would have.
My first dream was probably to become a dancer, but then I became a singer, and that’s also a dream of mine, and I get to do it every day, so I’m living it.
There were many good actresses in my time like Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds, but I was the only dancer.
I am not the first straight dancer or the last.
As a dancer I feel fulfilled and would want all dancers to be proud of themselves.
In Europe, a great dancer might be on the same level as a movie star. In America, not so.
I am thankful that ‘Jhalak’ made me a professional dancer now from just a ‘barat’ dancer.
I never thought of myself as a Broadway actress. I’m not really a singer or a dancer.
I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I was bad – I’m not very coordinated. But I always wished I could have been a dancer.
A lot of people don’t know the first time I was ever on national television I was a ‘Soul Train’ dancer.
I was a dancer, so for me, if I don’t work out for a week or move my body in some sense, I feel weird.
I think it’s useful to experience other types of dance and other cultures, and the life of a classical dancer these days is certainly not all tutus! So experience of other dance forms is a good idea.
Till now, I’ve not had the chance to dance in my films, but in ‘Tej I Love You,’ I have to dance. I know Sai Dharam Tej is a good dancer, so I am putting in a few hours of practice with the choreographer.
Being a dancer or athlete of any type teaches you the fundamentals of discipline… and the ability to know you can grow.
I didn’t know I wanted to act until it was around 21. I had just come back to Los Angeles after two and half years of traveling and working as a dancer and singer and was looking for a new performing art to study. I started taking acting classes and fell in love.
When my mother died when I was 15, it felt like the end of my dreams of becoming a dancer – I had a sister and a brother and we had to pull together to look after the house and my father.
In ’92, I got my first Broadway show as a performer – ‘Crazy for You.’ I was in the ensemble. In fact, I was in eight Broadway shows as a dancer. Seven of them were original shows. That’s how I learned to create something from the ground up.
I’m not a professional dancer.
One of the things I found as a dancer is that you’re trying to perfect your body but also protect it and keep it injury-free. When you work against your own weight, you’re still building lean muscle and bone density, but you’re in a safer zone.
It’s no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, ‘Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.’ By then, pigs will be your style.
Fred Astaire was a more formal, trained dancer who loved waltzing and only danced with the girls.
A good dancer is not necessarily defined by great technique, skill, or ability to pick up choreography but by confidence. When you feel the music, it penetrates to your soul. Everybody’s a dancer. The greatest dancer is someone who is willing to dance, not afraid.
I’m not a trained dancer – I know, I know, you’re shocked, I’m sure.
The best thing you can say about Hubbard Street is that if you were a dancer, this is a company you’d fight to get into.
It is hard being in a relationship when you are a dancer as I have been touring a lot all over the world.
When I was younger, people would always say, ‘Are you a ballet dancer?’ I had that look – one of those skinny kids with my hair in a bun.
I trained as a ballet dancer and fell in love with Rudolf Nureyev; I thought him the most beautiful creature. My mum had to break it to me that not only was he gay, but he was dead.
As a dancer, I love music that makes me want to move.
Way back before 1980, prior to ‘Disco Dancer’ breaking into the collective consciousness of filmgoers, I had come to Chennai to compose for a film called ‘Suraksha.’
Naturally enough when I was a young dancer, I was terribly anxious to get ahead, and to get ahead quickly. I was impatient with all those older people who talked of the long grind to the top, who turned me down for jobs I knew I could do.
I’ve always loved Broadway, but I never thought I’d actually do it because I was never a full Broadway dancer. And I don’t have a big, booming voice.
I’m more a percussion instrument than a dancer.
If I didn’t believe in myself as a dancer, I wouldn’t choreograph.
I was a dancer until I was 19. I never had to worry about working out or what I ate. So I’ve really had to train myself to get down to the gym.
A simple ballet wrap sweater heats the back muscles but is easy to put on or take off without disturbing a dancer’s makeup or hair before a performance or during a workout.
My dreams of taking the West End by storm as a dancer flickered but then faded; my father’s ambition to see me in a steady office job was tried and abandoned. But I had won a national speaking award, had stood for election to the local council, had begun to travel and took a job working for the Labour Party.
As a dancer, it’s hard because there’s such a perfectionist quality that you really have to let go of while you’re acting, because nobody wants to a watch a perfect person on screen.
My curves became an integral part of who I am as a dancer, not something I needed to lose to become one.
Growing up I was a competitive Irish step dancer.
I’ve never said I was the best dancer, and I never said I was a good dancer.
I am a Kathak dancer, and have got an advanced diploma in it.
As a dancer, I am either in something glamorous or I am rocking up to work in a leotard and my pyjamas. Dressing in between is quite difficult.
This journey from non-dancer to dancer has given me a lot of self-confidence and inner strength. I feel like a different person.
I was a dancer, growing up, and I definitely thought that was going to be my profession.
There’s no dancer alive better than those of the 1950s and 1960s. It’s only the energy that changes. Every now and then, someone like me comes along, and people say, ‘Oh, this guy is this new thing.’ But that’s not so. There is no me without them. The tradition just goes on.
