MIKHAIL BARYSHNIKOV

To walk across the street is a risk.

People dance at any age.

I am not the first straight dancer or the last.

My mother had a son from previous marriage and her husband died in Second World War.

Everything I do, it's a bit painterly. I like being surrounded by objects, mostly on paper. I like the images. I like the painting. I like good photography. It's something that makes me an emotional connection, and I feel comfortable around it.

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

I spend at least a couple hours a day in the studio, every day, whether I'm dancing or not.

Nobody is born a dancer.

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

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.

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

Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.

I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people.

I'm an impatient person in many respects. I like to put myself in uncomfortable situations. It forces me to deliver.

I kind of lost interest in the classical dance. I was very much interested in the modern choreography.

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

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.

I am teaching more. That is what I do best.

I've been hurt quite a few times.

I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.

I was always interested in photography and other forms of art.

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

Dance is one of the most revealing art forms.

My father was a Party member and he was a pretty high rank military officer under the colonel, junior colonel, I don't know the term. He was a total Stalinist. A bit with a streak of anti-Semitism and very shrewd man, a very kind of nervous man.

I read Russian literature a lot.