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.

I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.

I never liked dance photography; it's very flat, and dance photography in the studio looks very contrived.

My mother had a son from previous marriage and her husband died in Second World War.

My father was a Party member and he was a pretty high rank military officer under the colonel, junior colonel, I don't know the term. He was a total Stalinist. A bit with a streak of anti-Semitism and very shrewd man, a very kind of nervous man.

I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant.

Nobody is born a dancer.