Mikhail Baryshnikov Quotes

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 don't go to a gym, I don't do yoga. I don't do personal training.

You don't measure life by receiving awards.

I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.

When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I'll tell you who you are.

When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint.

You see, dancers are quite mature people because they start performing so early. They become professionals when they start to take everyday classes.

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.

I would like to go and dance in Palestine one day, with great pleasure, great pleasure.

You can be totally involved, you could admire just the shape of or you could be totally emotionally mushed up into the dance.

People of art should never get married and have children, because it's a selfish experience.

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

People dance at any age.

What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance.

Nobody is born a dancer.

Soviet regime in a way deprived me from my childhood in my homeland, because my father was in military, and after the Yalta agreement he was sent to teach in military academy in Riga, and I was born then.

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.

Just sit and open your eyes and open your heart. It's dance theater.

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

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get.

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans.

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices.

He [Astaire] was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him.

Nobody else in the world has a form like the Native American musical, and Americans should be very proud.

I don't try to dance better than anybody but myself.

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

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?'

We're trying to stretch our muscles creatively. It gives us so much more freedom.

He is a male butterfly without the wings - the same kind of grace of a very young horse, so angular.

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.

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

If your only dance experience is the Nutcracker, it will be a shock; hopefully shocking in a good way.

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis.

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

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.

Acting is not my language at all.

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.

Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful

I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people's participation and young faces in the audience.

It's weird when you see pieces of choreography that were done for you 15 or 20 years ago and now they are being done by another dance company.

No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything.

When I'm alone, I work sometimes with music, sometimes without and sometimes just listening to NPR.

Dance is an ephemeral, a fleeting art. To describe this momentum, every movement on stage, in words is virtually impossible.

Dances have a second and third life. You feel they are never ready. They always have a chance for another life.