Sylvie Guillem Quotes

For me, performance is a holy ground. When I perform, I really step into a different state of consciousness.

My personality just steps away, and I'm in direct connection when I'm on stage.

There can be moments onstage - but sometimes in a movie, too - where you just feel you're in a golden space. You're in this strange world where everything you do makes sense. And it's funny: the audience is right in it with you, and the other actors, and you get these rare moments of feeling at one with something. You hear voices in your head.

That's still the greatest high, that feeling of being in control of 2,000 people. It's me and them, and I like the odds. It's not even so much the funny. It's getting them quiet. In the quiet moments in '700 Sundays,' I just really love that they're getting moved.

I'm not the first one to say it, but that time onstage is a heightened sense of present tense.

I got to a point where I wanted to have some dignity in what I'm saying onstage. I want people to hear what I'm saying, regardless of whether or not it gets a laugh. That became a lot more rewarding than straight acting could ever be for me.

I'm the performer of the group. My thing is like, every time I come on stage, I always bring it 120 percent, 150 percent.

In any performance, you're on stage for two hours, and there's 40 seconds or maybe a whole five minutes where you feel like the whole universe is in place, and you've gone even beyond the universe that you know.

The more nervous I am, and the more insane a situation is, the more I love it and get addicted to it. That's why I love playing on stage. And I kind of freak out if I don't get to do it, because it's a big part of my sanity, I think.

When I'm working, on stage, entertaining people, or watching someone do something amazing, it inspires me to be the best artist that I can be. I enjoy being around art - whether it be a museum, a Broadway show - or even writing a poem. Those are things that make me feel alive and inspire me.

I just know that when I go onstage, I give everything I have, not only my feet, not only my legs, not only my body. I try to tell a story. Sometimes I am able to cry because I feel like it. Sometimes I am able to love because I feel like it.

To be honest, all I wanted to do, all I ever, ever wanted to do - I just wanted to perform.

I really, really love to move. You know what I mean? I mean, it's not a workout, but I absolutely love to do it, and that's performing, which is very close to doing Zumba. When you're onstage and you're moving everything, every single part of your body, it's actually working and active to the tips of your fingers. You're burning a hell of a lot of calories. And I think that's what people always look forward to - they want to know how many calories they've burned, and it's really important to actually know that and know your nutrition even more.

There's a very fine line between underacting and not acting at all. And not acting is what a lot of actors are guilty of. It amazes me how some of these little numbers with dreamy looks and a dead pan are getting away wit it. I'd hate to see them on stage with a dog act.

I absolutely love what I do, and I want to dance for as long as I can and feel good about what I am putting out there on the stage.

The things that mount the rostrum with a skip, And then skip down again, pronounce a text, Cry hem; and reading what they never wrote Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene!

I do love being onstage. And I've always loved playing a character and being watched doing that.

I absolutely love being on stage. I live and breathe the stage, and nothing makes me happier, but to perform.

In standup, you don't have anything near you except a microphone.

He had total love in his eyes when he performed. He was the total androgenous beauty. I would practice Elvis in front of the mirror when I was twelve or thirteen years old.

My life is like a music-hall,Where, in the impotence of rage,Chained by enchantment to my stall,I see myself upon the stageDance to amuse a music-hall.

My boyfriend's a musician, and I think when he's on stage is the only time he's not worrying. And so that's the reason he keeps doing it is because it gives him that sort of experience of weightlessness that I only get out of being sort of, deep into writing something or really lost in a moment on set, like it's available to me in these select moments through my work.

It was quite strange, because it's quite different from singing, although it's quite natural because you're used to performing or acting on stage.

Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

Stand-up is probably the most solo performance in art.