And dance is wonderful because dance is so immediate.

No one was creating and I always wanted to be created on.

Mostly, I'm in the very enviable position that no one dictates what I do.

And dance is wonderful because dance is so immediate.

I'm interested in people who can take the movement somewhere.

If the year 2000 can help us move into the future, that's fine, but I am afraid that people see it as a full stop and that one can take a big breath afterwards - you can't.

We moved, and there was a golden era in the '40s when we were so conscious of who we were as Australians.

I look at the dancers and I get the inspiration for the work from them.

Dance is so joyous.

We also tour nationally and internationally.

It's not a company of exponents of my style.

I think the Olympics could help us reach more people.

There's a line of dancers waiting to get into Sydney Dance Company.

Normally our season is seven weeks in the Drama Theatre and four weeks in the Opera Theater.

It's the emotional trigger points that are important to me because I know if I could believe in the characters and try and imagine how they felt then I'd be able to do something quite honest.

For me it was really important to get the essence out of the music for the story and not, sort of, press the music into the service of the whimsical telling of it.

But I also wanted to give them an intelligent emotional journey, without having to suspend reality - to be able to look at those characters and see reasons for the relationships and why what happens happens.

I wanted to give people - which is fairly bizarre considering my whole life is contemporary dance really - I wanted to give people a really fulfilling sense that they had seen a white classical ballet - in a very pure form.

And currently, there are four to five new works in the pipeline for upcoming celebrations such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Australian Federation, my 50th Birthday, and Sydney Dance Company's 25th Anniversary.

I think it requires a bit of honesty, Swan Lake.

I don't think people we'll miss the fact that SDC is way up there and that our profile is high.

I'm thrilled at the moment because our audiences, you know, they... the demographic is 50% male.

Yes, Carl Vine stuck around. He's now number one composer for choreography.

SDC has a great reputation for putting live music on stage.

I always figure I have this tree and there's always some green fruit that's not ready to pick or blossoms that are ready to flower; there are always some ready to drop off too.

Sydney is a very good market for us - we have a very strong following here.

I'm in the position to pick the cream of the crop.

We can't afford big symphonies but we commission works that sound rich and symphonic because of the nature of the instrumentation and the people we work with.

I actually build my dreams around the dancers I've got in my company.

I mean, I think in the early days we were pretty... pretty British in our entertainment leads.

The Lord doesn't like us to be dead. Be alive. Sometimes I dance to the glory of the Lord, because He said so.

I never danced a step in my life so naturally. My first motion picture was a musical, and Bob Fosse was the choreographer. I didn't exactly dance for Fosse, I just did the best that I could to do what he taught us to do.

Dance is very, very old. With Louis XIV at Versailles is where ballet started.

I cannot sing, dance or act; what else would I be but a talk show host.

No matter how close to yours another's steps have grown, in the end there is one dance you'll do alone.

When I got a lap dance, because I was 17, they had to put a massive pillow between me and the girl when she was grinding me. It was weird, yet pleasurable.

I grew up with six brothers. That's how I learned to dance - waiting for the bathroom.

I would love to do more music, definitely. That is my true passion. Dance is first and then music.

They're not particular about whether you're playing a flatted fifth or a ruptured 129th as long as they can dance to it.

I have thought about the next steps, and you know, they still don't know that I can dance. They don't know it, and it's frustrating me because I feel that it's an edge that I have, and I'm not talking about I took this hip hop class, I'm talking about this is how people actually know me.

The real message of the Dance opens up the vistas of life to all who have the urge to express beauty with no other instrument than their own bodies, with no apparatus and no dependence on anything other than space.

It's always been my dream to do a dance scene with Anthony Hopkins.

Sex in a dance is in the eyes of the beholder. I never thought my dances sexy. I suppose that's because I see myself with my face washed, and to me I look like a rabbit.

I had certain physical limitations that made me change the choreography for myself or made me more interested in choreography only rather than dancing. I have never been a person who wanted to just dance. I have always been interested in developing for other people.

We were at our best when we were playing in the dance halls of Liverpool and Hamburg. The world never saw that.

We want to be the band to dance to when the bomb drops.

Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance. Some will get angry when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time.

People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them.

The dance world is too small in lots of ways - it's too intense, it rattles around itself, and it needs exposing to other ideas.