Sylvie Guillem

“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.”

“When you improvise alone, you don't risk a lot, but doing an improvisation when you are two is even more difficult because you need to listen exactly to understand what is going to happen.”

“Between what I know I can do and want to achieve and what the audience expects, it's a lot of pressure, and it's always adding up.”

“I've learned to listen to what's going on with my body.”

“At the Paris Opera Ballet, they were always making choices for me.”

“When I was 25, it was painful. I was getting out of bed in the morning and couldn't walk. But when you are young, you don't care; it will pass. But one year after another, it's like, 'Come on, give me a break!'”

“Everything I do, I try to make it the best I can. So I go my own way and give it all I have.”

“Animals feel pain and love and joy, just as humans. But in the industrialised meat, dairy, and egg industries, animals are denied everything that's natural and important to them. Some of them don't even feel the fresh air. They don't see the light.”

“I do not want an animal to die for me.”

“Things that make me angry and sad, I cannot hide. It's not because I want to be a rebel; it's my instinct. When something touches me deeply, I really have to react.”

“As a child, I was afraid of everything. My parents were shy, the kind of people for whom it is an ordeal to go and buy some bread or whatever.”

“When you do one more 'Cinderella' or whatever, what is there to learn? Every part in the repertoire has a good side and a bad side, and the more often you do the same ballet, the more often the bad side comes out. If you want to give dance life, you must give it fresh food, not keep going back to the garbage to look for old scraps.”

“It is strange: I love to be in front of the audience, but I have this opposite side that is afraid of meeting people, that doesn't want to talk. I feel it's like having a little hard stone inside me of problems, doubts, and shyness.”

“I'm not a social animal, and I had a reputation that came before me of being very difficult, of screaming at everybody, so people tended to keep their distance.”

“It is in my nature to be a little shy. It takes time for me to talk to people and trust them.”

“I have a strong sense of injustice and not admitting things just because that is the way someone says it should be. I need to understand. I need to agree.”

“I was not happy with myself as a human being when I was very young - I was afraid of people; I was afraid of talking, I didn't know how to express myself other than by being on stage.”

“Dancers are trained to be disciplined to do what they are told, but I knew that time goes by, and I didn't want to make the mistakes of the others.”

“I would have loved to work with Cranko. I love stories. Even though I like a lot of style - Forsythe, Maliphant - I have this childish side that likes stories.”