Zadie Smith Quotes

I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies; they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.

I've always, especially through old Hollywood musicals, loved just to watch tap dancing; I adore it. I think it's fantastic.

I'm a tap dancer. Once you're a tap dancer, you're always a tap dancer. In 'After Midnight,' I get to dance, but I don't do a full tap number.

I think 'Tap Dogs' has lasted so long because people have a natural interest in tap dancing. This form of dancing can't be dated, it's such an intriguing form of dance because the feet are also an an instrument.

We know how Merce Cunningham works and how he thinks - we've been told, over and over again, by him and by others.

I grew up with the movies of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and Judy Garland - these are the kinds of shows and the kinds of numbers in shows that I dreamed of being in and doing when I was a kid.

It's one of my strongest dance pieces - having just done Play Without Words which was veering away from a lot of dance - I thought it would be nice to go back to something with almost the most dance I'd done.

As a dancer, obviously, we are all inspired by Michael Jackson, and I always looked up to Gene Kelly. He was a bigger version of Fred Astaire, and he was amazing as well.

When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art.

Tap dancing is something I love, and I've been working on it to get really good.

I would love to be able to tap dance.

If you like being battered, the work of Savion Glover - one-time child prodigy - should be up your alley. I don't, and it isn't up mine.

Patrick Swayze reminded me a lot of Gene Kelly. Patrick had that Everyman quality. Gene made dancing sort of an accessible idea for the regular guy out there.

I can always remember the dances, even from shows I did 40 years ago.

Astaire never thought of what he was doing as balletic, but Kelly was always trying to dance with women on points. And his choreography is so showy and flashy. He always looks self-satisfied to me.

I found I loved musicals as much or more than the pure dance world. I also think I became tired of dancing for other dancers.

I frequently go to the ballet, but I don't miss it in the sense that I wish I were still dancing.

'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' was my favorite for me to be in because it was all dancing. There were other musicals that I made with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly that were wonderful pictures, and we had a lot of fun making them.

I would love to do a musical. Something old-fashioned, probably.

I did a lot of dancing when I was young.

I have been passionate about dancing and acting as long as I I can remember. It was a natural progression to make it my passion, pursue it, learn more about it, and develop myself as a performer.

Astaire was ballroom, basically, and Gene Kelly had such athleticism - that's always what I responded to and what just blew my head open when I watched Gene Kelly's numbers. But, Fred Astaire was just so incredibly inventive and so, so smooth - so smooth.

There's a scene in 'Singin' in the Rain' where this guy dances with a giant doll while singing 'Make 'Em Laugh.' I remember loving the pure physicality of it.

My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.

I don't know if I would write an opera, maybe because of the words. But yes, I would be really excited to do it. I would certainly write a ballet or... I've done a lot of stage before.