I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios - the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us - and the feeling of ritual the classes had.
When I was 8, I began to study ballet. In seventh grade, my mother took me into New York to study at the School of American Ballet. I loved ballet - its precision, the escape from uncertainty, and the music.
I started learning Bharatnatyam from the age of three. I have also learnt folk dance.
A simple scoop-neck leotard highlights a ballerina's swanlike neck and elegant posture, both rooted in a powerful core.
I did 500 shows of 'Chaula Devi' and 700 shows of 'Anarkali'. I never mixed the filmy style with classical arts and kept my stage performances pure and it was appreciated.
Actually, I try different kinds of exercise. I do functional training, Zumba, classical dance and walking.
Shashi Kapoor and Amitabh Bachchan were good dancers.
Do you know what I've learned? That although ecstasy is the ability to stand outside yourself, dance is a way of rising up into space, of discovering new dimensions while still remaining in touch with your body. When you dance, the spiritual world and the real world manage to coexist quite happily. I think classical ballet dancers dance on pointe because they're simultaneously touching the earth and reaching up to the skies.
Ballet is an incredible art, but it can be a bit elitist, which is a really big turn off to me.
When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art.
Dance is very, very old. With Louis XIV at Versailles is where ballet started.
I have one coach and one coach only. His name is Alexander Vetrov. They brought him in for me when I joined the Bolshoi. He was a dancer with the Bolshoi, and we work very intensely together.
My favourite dance is the Foxtrot. It's a proper dance with proper music. It has class.
When I grow up I am going to be a ballerina. I will be in Giselle. It will be so much fun being a ballerina.
In the world of classical ballet there are only a handful of story ballets, so getting a new one is cause for excitement.
Classical ballet is very extreme. You're doing it six days a week, and it's a kind of obsession of perfecting a move. So every muscle in your body has been stretched and tightened, stretched and tightened.
I think ballet is pretty open about what music is used, actually.
Degas was obsessed by the art of classical ballet, because to him it said something about the human condition. He was not a balletomane looking for an alternative world to escape into. Dance offered him a display in which he could find, after much searching, certain human secrets.
I'm very flower-like. I love classical music. I go to ballet and I cry. There's nothing so beautiful.
Before founding Ballet Beautiful, I was a ballerina with the New York City Ballet.
Ballet has a very small audience, unfortunately.
I want the ballet world to be given the respect that it deserves and to be seen by more people - for so many to experience the beauty that I've received from the ballet world.
Classical ballet will never die.
Russians are very discerning about ballet. They're very opinionated about what classical ballet is.
I had learnt Kathak for six years from the age of eight and did a foundation course from Kathak Kendra in Delhi. I was not fond of classical dance, but today, I'm glad my mom made me do it.
