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.

You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing.

Obviously, the young dancers lack a certain air of maturity.

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked.

The problem is not making up the steps but deciding which ones to keep.

I like the most provocative and most surprising partnerships on stage. Intensity and surprise.

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?'