Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes
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The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.
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I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else.
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When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are.
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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.
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Nothing is ever too expensive if it furthers the repertoire and artistic standards of a dance company.
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I was never like, "collect, collect," like people who go to auctions. I never spent a serious amount of time because I don't have any time!
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Dance is an ephemeral, a fleeting art. To describe this momentum, every movement on stage, in words is virtually impossible.
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I kind of lost interest in the classical dance. I was very much interested in the modern choreography.
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Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful
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In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket.
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I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure.
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It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people.
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Dancers are stripped enough onstage. You don't have to know more about them than they've given you already.
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You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing.
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No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything.
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In the second part of life you get rid of stuff you've accumulated.
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Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.
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He is a male butterfly without the wings - the same kind of grace of a very young horse, so angular.
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I like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don't care.
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I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.
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When a dancer comes onstage, he is not just a blank slate that the choreographer has written on. Behind him he has all the decisions he has made in life. Each time, he has chosen, and in what he is onstage, you see the result of those choices. You are looking at the person he is, and the person who, at this point, he cannot help but be Exceptional dancers, in my experience, are also exceptional people, people with an attitude toward life, a kind of quest, and an internal quality. They know who they are, and they show this to you, willingly.
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I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people.
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I really reject that kind of comparison that says, Oh, he is the best. This is the second best. There is no such thing.
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No dancer can watch Fred Astaire and not know that we all should have been in another business.