I read Russian literature a lot.
Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great.
I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people.
I was never like, "collect, collect," like people who go to auctions. I never spent a serious amount of time because I don't have any time!
Soviet regime in a way deprived me from my childhood in my homeland, because my father was in military, and after the Yalta agreement he was sent to teach in military academy in Riga, and I was born then.
Every ballet, whether or not successful artistically or with the public, has given me something important.
In opera tradition, when opera die-hard fans, there is a replacement of singer or singer wasn't at his or hers vocal best, doing something, they boo. Especially now that they pay hundreds of dollars for the ticket.
The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis.
Running a company is pretty demanding.
I have been very lucky to work in so many new ballets, but that is what a dancer's work is.
To walk across the street is a risk.
I have some Russian friends. But probably only 10 percent. I don't hang out usually in the big Russian communities in Brooklyn and New Jersey.
I go a lot to see young people downtown in little theaters. It's great. If you start somebody's career, it's so exciting.
I - you know, I'm not an actor.
I feel very uneasy with a lot of aspects of the Russian life and the Russian people.
In '74 it was really a very gloomy atmosphere, I would say, to put it mildly.
Acting is not my language at all.
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 gave away a lot of works for benefits and then people would also give me back.
Nothing is ever too expensive if it furthers the repertoire and artistic standards of a dance company.
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.
We lived, until I was 12 or so, in communal apartment with five different families and the same kitchen, in two little - my brother and me and my parents. It was hell, but it was a common thing. My father was not general or admiral, but he was colonel. He was teaching in military academy military topography.
Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered.
