Divinity of art, it's such a mystery. How to convince people that no matter how much money you can spend on education and art education especially, that it implants, it directs a young person for the rest of their lives, and always in the most humane and positive and dignified manner.
Mikhail BaryshnikovTo achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices. Want to or not, you're thinking about what you're doing in life-in my case, dancing.
Mikhail BaryshnikovYou see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.
Mikhail BaryshnikovYou invest into the future, and that's how young people become human in best sense of it - through the great experience of listening a Mรผller symphony or to see a great play by Tennessee Williams, experience something in a ballet, in a film.
Mikhail BaryshnikovWhen 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.
Mikhail Baryshnikov