Baryshnikov Quotes & Sayings

My life has been immensely enriched by gay mentors, colleagues and friends, and any discrimination and persecution of gay people is unacceptable. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

There comes a moment in a young artist's life when he knows he has to bring something to the stage from within himself. He has to put in something in order to be able to take something. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I fell in love with New York. It was like every human being, like any relationship. When I was a young New Yorker, it was one city. When I was a grown man, it was another city. I worked with many dance organizations and many wonderful people. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I think I got disappointed over the years about New York, about the States. You know, sometimes you go and visit Europe and see good old socialism in its good part! You see public concern about art, and young people's participation and young faces in the audience. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Be. Good. To yourself, to other people, to everything you do. It's a norm of life by which people should try to live. Don't waste time. Be interesting and interested. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Running a company is pretty demanding. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I think maybe writers come from different planets. I mean, not in any sense as extravagant as Baryshnikov. But there are some writers who understand each other this way and others who understand each other that way. Then there's this great herd, the "herd of independent minds." — Renata Adler

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

Dancers are made, not born. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

You can be totally involved, you could admire just the shape of or you could be totally emotionally mushed up into the dance. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

The more injuries you get, the smarter you get. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I am not the first straight dancer or the last. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I get speeding ticket like everybody else. If the restaurant is full I'm waiting in line like everybody else. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

No matter what I try to do or explore, my Kirov training, my expertise, and my background call me to return to dancing after all, because that's my real vocation, and I have to serve it. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I like to go to anybody else's birthday, and if I'm invited I'm a good guest. But I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don't care. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

Dancing is my obsession. My life. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Film, theater and television always kind of scared me. I don't ever seriously think of myself as an actor at all, and I don't plan any film career or television career. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I want to do exactly what I want to do. I'd rather gamble on the box office than beg for a grant. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I have made mistakes. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

I am a performer. I go on stage and make a fool of myself. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I know when I am on stage and I'm kind of on the right track - hopefully most of the time. But a lot of time I'm not. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices. Want to or not, you're thinking about what you're doing in life-in my case, dancing. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Acting is not my language at all. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I found that dance, music, and literature is how I made sense of the world ... it pushed me to think of things bigger than life's daily routines ... to think beyond what is immediate or convenient. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I have the life of seven cats. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When I see people on the street, I look at how they walk. It's like a signature, a fingerprint. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

It's what's left in life, to work with interesting people. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Carla Korbes

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

I'm a news junkie. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

No one is born a dancer. You have to want it more than anything. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I am teaching more. That is what I do best. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When I'm alone, I work sometimes with music, sometimes without and sometimes just listening to NPR. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

Divinity of art, it's such a mystery. How to convince people that no matter how much money you can spend on education and art education especially, that it implants, it directs a young person for the rest of their lives, and always in the most humane and positive and dignified manner. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

To walk across the street is a risk. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

In the second part of life you get rid of stuff you've accumulated. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

It doesn't matter how high you lift your leg. The technique is about transparency, simplicity, making an earnest attempt. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Although I don't gamble in life - I've never played poker - I do gamble on stage. I gamble with myself: 'Can I do this?' — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I fell in love with New York. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I don't try to dance better than anybody but myself. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I adored my mother, and I will always have extraordinary memories about her and remember her, and she opened the doors for me to appreciate arts. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I don't want to do anything Freudian. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I want to see people dance, and I would like to guess what kind of people they are. I don't want to know the recipe for their pasta. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Choreographers use me as the old guy who still dances. Not that I put on white tights. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

What people will do to get away from boredom! — Mikhail Baryshnikov

You don't measure life by receiving awards. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

The Russian people get so insanely close to each other as friends. Their lives are interrelated so much on an everyday basis. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

We're trying to stretch our muscles creatively. It gives us so much more freedom. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

What brought me to the theater, no matter you're a Jew or a Russian or Armenian or Latvian, are suddenly illuminated by stage light and one beautiful image of dance. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Dance is an ephemeral, a fleeting art. To describe this momentum, every movement on stage, in words is virtually impossible. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I always had a kind of strange relationship with New York City, with total love affair in the beginning then retreat during the kind of conservatives of politics and real estate and business came, and then I am again kind of fighting for the justice to the city, to open the city for the artists. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Dancers are stripped enough onstage. You don't have to know more about them than they've given you already. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Your body actually reminds you about your age and your injuries - the body has a stronger memory than your mind. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I'm a product of Russian culture, but I never felt it was my country. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Where is the stretch? Where is the perfect fit? Where does it make sense? You have to be a Baryshnikov. — Marcus Samuelsson

If your only dance experience is the Nutcracker, it will be a shock; hopefully shocking in a good way. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Astaire was not a sexual animal, but he made his partners look so extraordinarily related to him. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When a body moves, it's the most revealing thing. Dance for a minute, and I'll tell you who you are. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I am not trying to do material which I cannot do full out. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I am not an educated person. I didn't come up through a ballet company. I came up through burlesque. So I have a lot of inferiority feelings concerning my own lack of education, my entry into show business. I'm not a Baryshnikov. I'm not a Nureyev. I came up in vaudeville. Strippers. So I've always had these feelings. But I think they've also helped me. — Bob Fosse

I am very sensitive to all form of music, painting, sculpting, dancing, and I love cinema also. For example if I look at the work of the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov, who happens to be a friend of mine, everything he does is inspiring to me. — Philippe Petit

I miss horribly those couple of hours before the performance when you get into the theater and you see people. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I like to make my own mistakes. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

I gave away a lot of works for benefits and then people would also give me back. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I think art education, especially in this country, which government pretty much ignores, is so important for young people. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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

People dance at any age. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

People of art should never get married and have children, because it's a selfish experience. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I was very restless. I really wanted to be a part of a kind of a progressive society. I was fed up with these Communist doctrines and you were hassled all the time with members of the Party committee who were KGB, what you have to do, where in the West you can go or not to go. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I never liked dance photography; it's very flat, and dance photography in the studio looks very contrived. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

The body cannot lie. You cannot be somebody else onstage, no matter how good of an actor or dancer or singer you are. When you open your arms, move your finger, the audience knows who you are, you know. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I cannot belong to a nonprofit organization because when you receive grants, you have to make such great compromises with your artistic plans. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I've always said, 'I am a selector, I am not defector' - the first few phrases in English I learned. I said I hate 'defector'; something defective about the people. It's a bad word. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

You cannot be happy with your family while being personally unhappy with your work. It's a Catch-22 kind of thing. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Working is living to me. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Just sit and open your eyes and open your heart. It's dance theater. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

In any art form, in Hollywood or in music, there is a handful of people who really, you know, move the envelope. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

In '74 it was really a very gloomy atmosphere, I would say, to put it mildly. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Creative Artists Agency put together a project of extraordinary mediocrity and colossal stupidity. Otherwise, it was great. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

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. — Mikhail Baryshnikov