Robert Gottlieb Quotes

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.

I wanted to be a professional dancer for a period of time, and I did a lot of dancing and choreography and got paid for it.

I began to fear that the Graham work was not in lots of ways sufficient for me. I suppose it came about from looking at other dancing and being involved with the ballet - something about the air and the way she thought about dancing.

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

Unlike a lot of choreographers, I don't always start with the music. I often start with a visual artist, and then find music that fits the world of that visual artist.

You can usually tell how healthy a ballet company is by the degree of your interest in the middle ranks of the dancers - the not-yet stars, the up-and-comers.

I am different because I have better schooling, better understanding of the line, gesture, how feet working, positions. They taught me modern things... and I wanted to give what I had: my schooling.

The great actors we had came from the actor-manager theaters. Not only did they create a team, they were the generals working with the soldiers.

I don't think it's necessary to be an actor to get great performances out of an actor. But I do think it helps me as a director because I know what I like as an actor, and I try to get that to the actors who I'm working with.

I have spent my life paying attention to my art form, developing my art form, worrying about my show and what I'm bringing to people, making sure that I give them a fine trade.

My body can't demonstrate. It isn't willing to explore movements the way it used to. I've always had to find the movement in myself then show it in myself. If I've got the sense of movement for the character, I expect the dancer to get it too.

But, yes, I learned everything working in theater. I learned the importance of community - I was constantly going to play readings, stand-up nights, improv. nights.

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

As I get into it more, I want to grow as an artist, as an entertainer, and basically perfect my craft.

I was a dancer first, which made me realize how much I loved performing.

The Kirov is a great ballet company because it has so many terrific dancers, but it doesn't always know what to do with them.

Seeing 'Revelations' made me want to be a professional dancer.

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

Dancers, like all performing artists, like nothing better than to be challenged.

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.

I would love to be able to tap dance.

As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.

'River of Light,' to a dense but powerful score commissioned from Charles Wuorinen and with ravishing lighting by Mark Stanley, has depth and resonance.