To 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.

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.

I gave away a lot of works for benefits and then people would also give me back.

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.

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.

Be. Good. To yourself, to other people, to everything you do. It's a norm of life by which people should try to live. Don't waste time. Be interesting and interested.

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.