Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don’t have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.
I was sort of a jack-of-all-trades in show business for a long time. I was a singer and a dancer, and then I got a job as an actor.
I was a Spanish dancer. I don’t mean to put that down, because that was great, too, but nothing like the kind of dancing you had to do in ‘West Side Story,’ which was called jazz.
I’m a terrible dancer! Oh, I’m an awful dancer!
No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.
Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones.
When I went to the sets of ‘ABCD,’ I felt younger. Surrounded by so many young dancers, I, too, became a dancer again.
I used to work at this store, and I got fired when I actually booked the job on ‘Glee’ because I had to go film ‘Glee.’ I was a dancer on ‘Glee.’ My manager was like, ‘Umm this isn’t gonna work, so you can come get your last check this week.’
I’m obviously always interested in the dancer who’s an athlete and vice versa. I expect dancers to be in condition like an athlete is and to challenge themselves in the same way, to the same physical degree.
When Prince Andrew tired of romancing a pretty dancer and turned his attentions to Koo Stark, he instructed the Buckingham Palace switchboard not to put her through when she rang.
My body is an object of work. That’s why I think to be an actor is one of the most violent jobs. If you’re a pianist, you have your piano. If you’re a guitarist, you have your guitar. But if you’re a dancer, or you’re an actor – your instrument is your body.
I’m not naturally a gifted dancer, and I don’t enjoy it.
Before I moved here, I had no desire to become a dancer. But when I saw the dance schools in the city and the massive opportunities, I decided to give it a shot. Mumbai being a land of unlimited possibilities gave me the confidence to go for it.
I wanted to be a tap dancer when I was very young.
I’ve been an actor since I was 12 and my dream role is Sally Bowles in ‘Cabaret.’ What’s crazy is that I’m not a great singer or dancer but I’ll commit.
I was a dancer, but I was always a little overweight. I’d say, ‘Hello, I’m Valerie Harper, and I’m overweight.’ I’d say it quickly before they could… I always got called chubby. My nose was too wide; my hair was too kinky.
I need to live in new shoes and not be a dancer.
I would love to be an amazing singer. I take voice lessons. It’s good to have as a dancer – to be able to sing and act, too, because for a Broadway show or musical, you have to be able to do everything.
I thought about my future. In 10 years’ time, I would be in the same position as when I started – the best dancer in the world, but still sharing a flat. You’re an adult, but you live like a kid.
I have never sung a whole song on my own before and I am not the best dancer in the world, but I would rather try and fall than not not try at all.
I was an okay singer. I was an okay dancer. But acting? Never could do it.
I had many hobbies but now I only work on myself. I have to become the best dancer and actor and have the best personality.
I think the true artist – musician, dancer, writer, actor – a true artist is able to sort of articulate pain and tragedy, in a way that sort of expresses what the listener or the beholder may have been feeling but was less able to communicate.
I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his ‘divine service.’
I can’t tell you how many times someone has written me and said, ‘I became a doctor because of you’ or ‘I became a dancer because of you.’
Movies and media really can influence us. A few years ago, my daughter wanted to be a dancer; since Obama came into office, she now wants to be a lawyer and get into politics and maybe even be president.
An athletic man, or whatever you want to call him, will only look good in a very classic suit, a pair of classic jeans, athletic clothes or simply naked. Forget fashion. This is not going to happen, unless you want to look like a Chippendales dancer in designer clothes.
I found out my limit. I’m not a singer and a dancer.
Every great dancer has so much to offer.
I moved to London to go to dance school when I was about 17, but then I realized that I didn’t want to be a dancer anymore, so I dropped out after five or six weeks. All I wanted to do was sing and make music.
Britney Spears was an incredible dancer. That kid was amazing.
I didn’t want people to think I’m a dancer. I’m much more. I’m a human being.
My problem is: as a singer and a dancer, if I get it in my body one way, it is harder for me to be open to something new – to something else; to something that is really organically connected to the piece and not just to my perception of it.
A dancer’s career is short – you just keep going until your legs pack up.
I have hosted many shows in the past. Anchoring is something I really enjoy; hence, when I was offered to host the show ‘Super Dancer,’ I was excited to take it up.
I started out as a dancer, but gradually became more interested in music.
What I mean is that none of my talents had a – what’s that great word – rubric. A singer, an actor, a dancer – there was nothing I could really say I was. The writing came much later. And, actually, thank God, because if I had said I’m a singer, I would really have just had one thing to do.
I don’t want to be known as an item dancer. I want to be known as an actress only.
When I was a little girl I wanted to be a dancer. I studied ballet.
What’s a dancer’s worst enemy? Sometimes it’s age, but sometimes it’s the dancer themselves.
I am a singer and dancer, and I’ve been perfecting it for a lot of years.
I was a dancer, so it was easy for me to dance in films. I had studied Kathak, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Odisi and Kathakali much before I even thought of becoming an actor.
So I’m studying ballet every day and really training so people will see me as a ballet dancer, which no one’s seen before.
I was a backup dancer at one point for a group that was on RCA.
Every dancer has injuries, and your injury could happen that season that you were getting that one part that you’ve wanted to do your whole career. So you have to appreciate every single moment until it happens.
I was a dancer, and my father was a dancer, so I really grew up in that environment.
Young dancers are training at a very vulnerable time in their lives, through adolescence, and while they are trying to work out who they are as people, never mind as a dancer. So train the whole person, not just the dancer.
In those days, male dancers were a rarer breed than women. as they are still today, A good male dancer, one as strong as we were, was very difficult to come by if you couldn’t afford to pay them.
I was a dancer for about 20 years. It didn’t really help me transition into music.
Do you know what, before ‘Strictly,’ I’ve always regretted not training as a dancer.
I was a Russian dancer in my elementary school production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ when I was in third grade or fourth grade. I was one of the younger kids accepted into the play, and the plays were pretty impressive, let me say.
I knew I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but what kind, I wasn’t sure. My two dream companies had been New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater.
I like reading and writing, and I am a trained classical dancer.
Growing up, I was a dancer. I wanted to be a choreographer.
They do say, the smaller the feet, the better the dancer.
To me, this was an oxymoron, doing a painting of a dancer. Dancers are always moving.
Jimmy Slyde was more a musician than a dancer; Greg Hines was more musician than dancer.
No one can hand you anything as a dancer. You have to earn it.
I watched ‘Disco Dancer’ when I was very young. I have always loved its songs.
I wanted to be a professional dancer my whole life.
A cardio-funk class – I should have at least taken one of those. But it’s always terrified me. I’m never one to be a dancer on the dance floor, even at a bar or a club.
I am not a natural dancer, not even a half way competent dancer.
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.
I’m a tap dancer. Once you’re a tap dancer, you’re always a tap dancer. In ‘After Midnight,’ I get to dance, but I don’t do a full tap number.
It’d be very difficult to cast me as a ballet dancer. Everybody is, in some sense, controlled by their size and their gender. I’m not going to be allowed to play the part that Denzel Washington plays.
I grew up in New York, and I’ve always been surrounded by fashion. My grandmother used to write for ‘Vogue’ in the ’50s, and my mother was a dancer and a model.
