I was a professional dancer before I was an actor.

All due respect and trying to be as modest as I can be, I am a dancer. But I don't think I would be on 'Dancing with the Stars,' mainly because I would be too shy.

Being an actor is lot like being a dancer: you always have to go back to the bar and either work or take classes. Otherwise, you'll get rusty.

I'm not a huge dancer onstage. In fact, I like not moving at all if I don't have to. But even just standing up for any given amount of time in 6-inch heels ends up leaving me feeling like I've been cracked in half like a rag doll after a few shows.

When the Negro musician or dancer swings the blues, he is fulfilling the same fundamental existential requirement that determines the mission of the poet, the priest and the medicine man.

We always have a really bad dancer on 'Strictly,' like Kate Garraway or Fiona Phillips, and that's great, and we love it, but when it comes to the quarters and semis, you want the best dancers left in.

I was a professional dancer before I was an actor.

In swimming at my level it's about control of the small movements. A good ballet dancer floats across the stage, the best sprinters virtually abolish gravity. All motion occurs in the right direction.

At Sarah Lawrence, I realized that everybody was already what they were going to be. The painters were painting, the writers writing, the dancers dancing. And nobody wore any makeup. The art was uppermost.

Some people are painters, and some are ballet dancers, and I'm a writer.

I've always been a figure skater and ballet dancer. I love physical comedy, and any chance that I get to do that... that is so me.

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

I feel an obligation to use black dancers because there must be more opportunities for them, but not because I'm a black choreographer talking to black people.

I always want to have more dancers in my company.

I'm a hip-hop dancer, but when I'm in my room it turns into this lyrical nonsense, and I listen to Phil Wickham and India Arie, who has the most precious songs.

A good dancer is not necessarily defined by great technique, skill, or ability to pick up choreography but by confidence. When you feel the music, it penetrates to your soul. Everybody's a dancer. The greatest dancer is someone who is willing to dance, not afraid.

When you start off as a dancer, you don't become one overnight; you must train for more than a decade.

Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She entranced Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus festooned with ribbons and precious stones.

As a dancer, I know couples that have stayed married but separated to dance on different continents. Dance in general, but ballet in particular, is such a finite career. You can't do it later in life, and it's something that I think a dancer has to have some selfishness to fulfill.

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 think people don't often realize how much goes into being a male dancer. It's athletic and it's hard. It's not just men wearing tights, or wanting to be around women.

A lot of professional dancers become professional when they turn 15 or 16 years old, when they're still children. So you've trained every single waking moment up until that point for a career that could maybe only last 10 years, maybe longer if your body holds up, if your injuries are kept at bay.

Every dancer has injuries, and your injury could happen that season that you were getting that one part that you've wanted to do your whole career. So you have to appreciate every single moment until it happens.

I think it would be fair to say that most female dancers have dealt with, whether it's an extreme, or minor complex in eating disorders. So the first thing I would say to girls who are feeling that way is you're not alone. You're far from alone. You're the majority. There's absolutely nothing wrong with what you're feeling.

I have this ridiculous chip on my shoulder, having been a dancer, that I feel like I really ought to be able to do everything myself - but there are some things I very clearly cannot.

No disrespect to any other god, but Shiva's an outsider god. He breaks the rules. He's a brilliant musician, a brilliant dancer; he treats his wife as an equal, and she opposes him many times, but he obsessively loves her.

To join or not to join films was the biggest choice I had to make. I'd done two years of biogenetic engineering, was an economics graduate and a gold medalist. I had also been a Bharatanatyam dancer from age five, always won the best actress award in school. Finally, I decided to do things for my soul, chose to act.

I grew up idolising Madhuri Dixit, though I wasn't a Hindi film buff. I had an academic upbringing, and movies were a rarity. I looked up to Madhuri because I loved dancing, and she's a fantastic dancer.

Dancers know how to move their arms and their hands. But I don't know the first thing about how to move my arms and hands gracefully.

Well, I took ballet for many, many years, so my whole childhood really revolved around dance class. I grew up around dance; my mother was a dancer.

I know how to sew, knit, I'm a great chef, and a good dancer.