As a dancer, it's hard because there's such a perfectionist quality that you really have to let go of while you're acting, because nobody wants to a watch a perfect person on screen.
I used to get made fun of a lot for being a male dancer, especially growing up in Boston. Kids are terrible, they don't realize how heavy words can be.
Dancers have always been a kind of background image, we've always danced behind an artist or we've danced in a movie behind the actors. We've always been very secondary.
When I left Michigan and I came to New York, that was my goal, to be a professional dancer. And I sort of fell into singing by accident in a way.
Every act I see, their whole act is choreographed. I'm sick of seeing these dancers. The only reason they have them is they don't have enough talent to get people dancing themselves.
I never studied dance, but if you look at 'Wild At Heart,' my mother saw that movie and said, 'You are a dancer. Look at how you're moving: all that strange energy is like modern dance.'
A cardio-funk class - I should have at least taken one of those. But it's always terrified me. I'm never one to be a dancer on the dance floor, even at a bar or a club.
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.
I already feel a bit annoyed at myself for writing screenplays. It's a bit, I don't know, model-singer-dancer-actress that went to a posh school. There's something too weirdly predictable about it.
I think it's useful to experience other types of dance and other cultures, and the life of a classical dancer these days is certainly not all tutus! So experience of other dance forms is a good idea.
Due to a big bust in Cuba, my father's business suffered badly, so I was free to choose my own career. I became a professional dancer, and I went on the road and started making real money.
I always recommend a sensible diet, including lots of carbohydrates and avoiding too much fat. Dancers don't need different fuel from other people - they just need more of it because they use more energy.
I used to love to see Willie Pep and Ray Robinson. To me, the epitome of a great athlete is a great boxer. I just love the rhythm of seeing a man dance, slip punches. I loved the dancers and boxers. I would see them and be mesmerized.
I think I just have this need to be a storyteller. That's why I wasn't a great dancer - I couldn't articulate a story. I was a better choreographer. I have the need to to just express myself in that way. I can't explain it.
Mum, who had been a dancer with a small ballet company before she got married, was full of encouragement. She didn't say, 'This is really good, you should do this', She just encouraged us to do whatever we liked.
Hamp would ask me about tempos in the band: 'Jacquet,' he'd say, 'knock off that tempo.' A lot of jazz musicians didn't prefer to play for dancers, which was their loss, really. But good jazz has always had that dance feel.
When I started music, I think it was responsible for keeping me sane, because training as a dancer really kept me in good spirits amid all the crazy stuff that happened when I first became popular.
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.
Independent dance - and, fine, it's a very good thing that it remains independent - is a much tougher life: all dancers expect that, and accept that there will be periods of not being able to work, provided there are choice moments during the year wh...
I was using tape loops for dancers and dance production. I had very funky primitive equipment, in fact technology wasn't very good no matter how much money you had.
I realize that dancers have worked long and hard for standards. However, on occasion, I think that it's good to examine one's heart and ask why are we dancing.
