Inside the Dancer’s Art. Rose Eichenbaum

      My dance is a soulful articulation of unspoken truths.

       Julie Adams

      How I’d execute moves and steps—attack them, embrace them, or shy away from them—always had a direct correlation to what was going on in my mind, my heart, and in my life at that time.

       Stephanie Guiland

       Donald Byrd’s/The Group

      The doctors said I needed a hip replacement. My career of more than two decades was over. I cried for a month and hid in my apartment, drinking heavily. Without dance I didn’t want to live. What other skills did I have? I went from being the lucky dancer who was always working to someone who had no income.

       Michael Blake

       Donald Byrd’s/The Group

      My agenda is to see how far I can push the body. I don’t mean just the physical body. I mean the mind too.

       Donald Byrd

       Donald Byrd’s/The Group

      You can’t discover new things about your soul unless you take risks—go out on a limb. The challenge to go out there becomes a challenge to the self. It’s how you show your mettle as a person.

       David Parsons

       Parsons Dance Company

      There is no manual, no road map to a successful dance career. You have to write your own.

       Daniel Ezralow

      Every human emotion can be conveyed and shown through dance—expressly romance, passion, and joy.

       Parissa with Desmond James

      Movement and action are the only things that really communicate. I can use words, but if I don’t include my body to support the words, then the words might not be believed.

       Rennie Harris

       Rennie Harris Puremovement

       Bonnie Oda HomseyJohn Pennington

       American Repertory Dance Company

      I am, and will always be a dancer. Every cell in my body is primed to be so.

       Nancy Colahan

      What empower me on stage are the combustion of instinct, physicality, imagination, and the risk of being vulnerable.

       Bonnie Oda Homsey

      Dance is how you express what you know about your own spirituality.

       John Pennington

      Know your own power and use it to reveal to the audience what you want them to know about you.

       Janet Eilber

       Martha Graham Dance Company

      What has always driven me is the search for a new step.

       Gregory Hines

       State Street Ballet

      The power of imagination can shine a light into our souls where the essence of beauty is discovered and the artistry of performance is born.

       Rodney Gustafson

       Artistic Director, State Street Ballet

       Yuan-Ming Chang

       State Street Ballet

      Ballet means everything to me—like the air I breathe and the sun that warms my soul.

       Silvia Rotaru

       State Street Ballet

      I feel ill before every performance. My stomach churns, my heart races, my palms sweat. But as soon as I step on the stage in front of an audience all that goes away. I become empowered—bold, confident, strong!

       Alyson Mattoon

       State Street Ballet

      To move an audience we have to be more than just an instrument of the dance. We have to