Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes
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I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.
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I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people. In the '90s, it became kind of a hard and unwelcoming city in many ways. It became conservative, like the whole country.
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I go a lot to see young people downtown in little theaters. It's great. If you start somebody's career, it's so exciting.
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Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.
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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.
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I don't drink milk, and I don't eat bread, pasta or rice. But I eat a lot of meat, chicken, fish and salads.
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I was very restless. I really wanted to be a part of a kind of a progressive society. I was fed up with these Communist doctrines and you were hassled all the time with members of the Party committee who were KGB, what you have to do, where in the West you can go or not to go.
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A country like Belgium, or socialist countries in central Europe spend more money on art education than the United States, which is a really puzzling thought.
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I want to see people dance, and I would like to guess what kind of people they are. I don't want to know the recipe for their pasta.
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Running a company is pretty demanding.
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Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.
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Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.
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It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity, making an earnest attempt.
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I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world... it pushed me to think of things bigger than lifes daily routines... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient.
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You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age.
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When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint.
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I never liked dance photography; it's very flat, and dance photography in the studio looks very contrived.
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You don't measure life by receiving awards.
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I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans.
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There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something.
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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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Although I don't gamble in life - I've never played poker - I do gamble on stage. I gamble with myself: 'Can I do this?'