I am a bit of a boss, even when it's about the composting. This goes here! This goes there! Don't do that! Maybe for the sake of others, I should let go a bit.
— Sylvie Guillem
Dancing pleases me. I hope I transmit that to others.
Dancers, you know, they have pain everywhere: ankles in the morning, or back or neck or ribs or knees or the muscles. You are never free of pain, you know.
When I watch dance, most of the time I just see a potential that is not there at all. I just see they missed the point. They just give us a tiny bit of what it could be.
The stage is like a magnifier of thoughts and emotion and vibration; that's what the stage is incredible for because it makes you live other lives. It makes you experience other emotions. It makes you feel more beautiful or more alone or more angry. It makes you feel much more, more, more.
I never dreamt of becoming a ballerina. I was just curious about it, it was something to explore.
When I am on stage, I feel completely free and just want to let go.
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.
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.
My father had the curved feet, my mother the legs, so I am a bit of both.
'Swan Lake' can be a nightmare. To make a 'Swan Lake' that is worth it, every single movement and breath has to be perfect. When you have an idea of 'Swan Lake' that is as high as that, it's almost impossible.
If I do not feel comfortable, I will not look comfortable.
I am not a completely stubborn person. But I have views.
Fate is like a train. When it flies past, you can choose if you want to get on it or not, to say no or say yes.
My mother really pushed me when I was young. I didn't want to go to dance classes, but for some reason, when I was there, I didn't want to come back.
As much as I love my work, I do appreciate my rare days off. Even then, I can't afford to let the dancing go. I need at least an hour just to keep in shape, so wherever I am in the world, I'll grab the door or the furniture and do some serious exercise.
Terrorism is not a small problem.
For someone like me, who as a kid could not have two people in front of me without wanting to hide, to end up on stage with a lot of people in front of me, feeling good, it has to be a strange and special place.
I think the only regret I have is not to have opened my eyes sooner to aspects of life like the relationship of man with nature and animals.
On stage, you can bring all those strong emotions that you don't have the opportunity to live. You don't want to die for love every day, but on stage, you can.
No one person can change the world, but one and one and one add up.
I loved being at the Royal Ballet. Those choreographers, MacMillan and Ashton, they knew how to translate complicated life into choreography.
You don't start by saying, 'Well, am I better than her?' Because that goes nowhere. Instead, all your work, your passion, your will has to go into what you do. And then if there is a result, if people like you, if you are a bit different, then fine.
I work hard to make a gift to the audience.
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.
When you are young, you can do anything, everything, and nothing at the same time. You don't have that kind of judgment; you just eat... like teenagers that need to feed. After a while, you know exactly what you are looking for, that sense of analysis comes to you when you start to use your brain.
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.
I could have done a lot of things on TV, but I don't want to be recognised in the street. I'm not ready to feel that sort of embarrassment.
Choreographers tend to treat ballet dancers like kids they can manipulate.
I was born with a different physical capacity to other people.
If you start dancing too young, it can be torture. The bone is too soft, and it is going everywhere.
I love nature like nothing else. Before I moved to Switzerland, my home was a flat in London with a garden. In those snatched moments away from dance, I did typical weekend things like pruning, planting, and weeding. I planted fruit trees and even had a vegetable garden, but I wasn't around enough, so it was a disaster.
As a professional ballet dancer, I have to accept that weekends are about work. The notion of a leisurely break with all the buzz and excitement of a Friday night simply doesn't exist for me.
I just don't like authority. I do like authority when I respect it.
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!'
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.
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.
I am stronger as a vegan than I ever was with meat and dairy.
At school, either gymnastics or dance, it was the same. It gave me pleasure to move. And then, when I worked to achieve something new and out of the ordinary, it made me feel good. I felt I had surpassed myself.
Everything I do, I try to make it the best I can. So I go my own way and give it all I have.
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.
A drop of water can't stop a fire alone. But a drop of water, plus another one, plus another one, then you have the rain, and the rain can stop the fire.
Oh, I could have done more. I refused a lot of ballets. I said, 'No way, no way I'm going to do that.'
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.
Dancers should realise that they are really lucky. Dancing is not a job. It's people who are chosen. And you must realise that you are chosen. Sometimes I see a performance that makes me really angry - I think, 'Those people are lucky, and they don't realise it.'
There are things I cannot do, costumes I cannot wear. When I have taken stands on things, it is because I have thought carefully about them.
If you are afraid of losing something, then you are dependent on it. If you are not afraid, then you are free.
Dancers are not like movie actresses. People look at our bodies, not our faces. They only recognise me when I sign my name on something and they say, 'Ah yes, Sylvie.'
Walking in the mountains helps me unwind, but it also reminds me in a painful way that the real beauty in life is nature and animals, and that the human race, in all its arrogance, is intent on destroying it.
Ballet is hard enough when you go with it; when you have to force your body to do things, it is so much harder.
