Darcey Bussell Quotes

I do take class because I still dance, and yes, I do slip into class with the Royal Ballet from time to time.

I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days.

I've danced since I was 5 and went to the School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center at 7.

I think I tended toward the Russian training because my first teacher taught a version of Vaganova, and it was drilled into me that that was the best system, and also at the time there were a lot of great Russian stars.

In order to dance professionally, you have to start at a young age. No matter what, your muscle structure and your bones have to be groomed from a very young age. Nobody wakes up at 17 and decides to become a ballet dancer.

I was born in Toronto and studied with the National Ballet of Canada. I went to school to study dance, slept on the floor, ate nothing, waitressed - and then there was a Mary J. Blige audition.

I went away when I was 9 to a ballet school. I thought I wanted to be a dancer, but eight years of ballet cured me of that.

I wanted to be a ballet teacher.

I think that taking ballet is one of the best things a girl can do. Period.

Growing up in Niagara Falls, Ontario, I took classes as a young girl and became very serious about ballet, and also performed with a local company, although it wasn't a professional company.

My mother and my father always had me in ballet and dance, and I sang in a girl's group.

Being in ballet school and being in leotards in front of a mirror I don't know how many hours a day was quite tough.

I had classical training at London's Royal Ballet School, and my first job was with the Semperoper Dresden ballet company in Germany.

I did ballet at the Menlo Park Academy of Dance from age 4 to 11, but then I switched to ballroom, and I've been doing that ever since.

The first time I took a plane to dance in front of an audience outside France was when I was in the Paris Opera Ballet School, and we flew to Japan.

I had some ballet training but didn't like it. It was like a game to me.

When I was nine, I started doing ballet. That's when I knew that I was down to keep doing it.

I ended up training only for four years before I was accepted into American Ballet Theater in New York City.

I actually came to New York when I was 12 and did ballet school for a little while. I was being groomed to be professional, and a lot of the professors and teachers there were drawn to me and thought that I could become a professional ballerina.

At age 14, coming to the U.S., all I knew was American Ballet Theatre, Baryshnikov, Nureyev, and some of the European companies. I barely knew anything about Balanchine.

I started dancing when I was four years old and then was in class until I was about 20 years old or so, and then primarily was dancing just in shows that I was doing, but not really studying and training.

The first year with ABT I learned 13 new roles. Most were lengthy ballets, more complicated than I was used to. I have suffered from tendinitis since I was 13, and it flared up again until the pain was paralyzing. There were times I prayed I'd be sick so I wouldn't have to go on.

I love ballet, and it's a little boring for me to go to the gym because I'm used to the dancing discipline - it's really hard but much more fun.

I've never danced professionally as a ballet dancer, but all of my training is ballet, and I am a Fosse dancer.

I've been dancing all my life and studied at Joffrey Ballet when I was 13 and singing all my life.