Matthew Bourne Quotes

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

I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.

I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.

I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.

I was a late bloomer, but I had a career as a contemporary dancer before that, so I had some kind of connection to this world. But I was always a little more in love with the drama of dancing than the aesthetics, so I thought, 'Why don't you give it a chance if you think you can do it a little different?'

There's no point pretending that all of Martha Graham's pieces are equally strong.

Ballet is like any other art form in that we all start out knowing nothing about it.

I had always choreographed a little, beginning in high school. And I leaned toward choreography. I always had an overview of what was going on.

Growing up, I was a dancer. I wanted to be a choreographer.

I really developed an early love for ballet. Like most dancers, I am still 'first' a dancer. I'm very proud of it. Once you are a dancer, the physicality never leaves you, nor does the strength. Hopefully, it keeps you like an athlete.

I started dancing when I was 5 years old. Ballet. Flamenco.

Pure dance form is not dying.

'The Company' was interesting. I didn't love it, although it might be compelling to someone who isn't a dancer. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, and you were just kind of observing the creative process of choreography and in class.

I grew up studying dance, taking ballet lessons.

While I love dancing, and even acting in 'ABCD' - 'Anybody Can Dance' - was fun, I remain, at heart, a choreographer.

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

I love musicals; I love the ballet, opera, the circus. It's all performance to me.

The life of a dancer is tragically short. What is remarkable about the New York City Ballet is that it makes us forget that. Because it keeps the ballet alive.

You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.

I very much like dance and dancers.

My parents were opera singers and voice teachers, so growing up, I admired musicians and dancers.

My first vocation was dance.

I had to work out that it was something that could move, without having everybody in spray painted leotards.

Those 25 dancers we worked with for a day, in as highly productive a way as possible - a long class, a period of teaching bits of the repertory - in fact I didn't teach Bank, I've used parts of Oil and Water.

The New York City Ballet is obviously speaking to a whole new generation and bringing it the same wonder and beauty that it brought previous generations.