Somewhere in the world of dance we started thinking about steps way too much: technique, steps, technique, steps. You can do all the technique you want, the regular public doesn't know. All they know is how you perform and what you tell them and what you make them feel; and when you make somebody feel something, it is undeniable.

We see people who dance really well and can't perform all the time. It's in our community, our dance community. It's like that because we've been doing back-up dancing for so long. We're always in the background of the movies and we're always behind the artist so our job is not to outshine the artist. Well now, with all these dance television shows, we're getting a chance to be the artist. We're on the forefront. We're the Gene Kellys and the Fred Astaires of this generation and it's our job to make people feel something and to really perform.

The director's word used to be final. Today directors don't even come on sets for a dance sequence. Its canned by the choreographer.

There are so many acting schools these days. Maybe, the new generation of actors is forgetting that acting is more emotional than mechanical. Take dancing, today's dancers are not dancing; they're just performing a drill to some beats.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

And here I want to avoid a misunderstanding that might easily arise. From what I have said you might conclude that my intention is to return to the dances of the old Greeks, or that I think that the dance of the future will be a revival of the antique dances or even of those of the primitive tribes. No, the dance of the future will be a new movement, a consequence of the entire evolution which mankind has passed through. To return to the dances of the Greeks would be as impossible as it is unnecessary. We are not Greeks and therefore cannot dance Greek dances.

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. I can correct it and tell them what they have done after they have done it, and what it means to me. But I don't say, "Be fearful here," "Be angry here," because I think that is intrusion.

I think the future of dance is where we came from, where the dancers are the stars and I see in the next ten years dancers being these huge stars and the movie musical coming back.

[Hip-hop dancers] are stunning in what they can do. What's happening is they're starting to go to class; they're actually starting to get some professional lessons. And that, for me, is very exciting because we've always discussed fusing the different styles. And to see them take it on board now and to do different things, even ballroom, is terrific, because nobody can do what they can do. So, if they then start doing what other people can do, wow. They're going to be very dangerous contestants.

The clumsiness of people who have to engage their brain at every step is unbearably painful to watch, at least to me, and that's what the novice-friendly software makes people do, because there's no elegance in them, it's just a mass of features to be learned by rote. However, this suits people a hell of a lot better than setting out at age 6 to become a great ballet dancer and achieving their goal 20 years later after every tendon and muscle and joint has been asked to perform just a little bit more than nature ever intended over and over and over again. To most people, this is insanity. But in reality, it's art, and it's the art in what we do that makes us human.

And guess what: you don't need much technique to do that… You don't! You just have to live the idea. But some of you're afraid, you get it? And so you think and you pose. And honey there is nothing more boring. That's a whole other world, that's the world of phoniness, glamour magazines that devised us, right? And so in dance we want to see the truth, let's ride of that.

By the way, dancers are not human beings. How can you be human and do what they do?

The thing about dancers is they're a certain breed. You don't do it to become rich and famous, you don't do it to have a really long career or to be the star, you do it because you can't imagine your life not doing it.

When asked why she thought there was deterioration in standards and expectations of art, she suggested it was the result of the fuss generated around young dancers, the pressures to perform at an early debut, and the indiscriminate acclaim given to young dancers before they had found their feet.