If I can relay anything, it's that if someone has a dream, and it isn't the norm of what others are doing around you, it doesn't matter. Reach for it. Go for it - because I'm a shining example of that.

Certainly, when you train as a classical dancer, you are very much influenced by 'Giselle.' You see it all the time; you start to learn the steps a little.

I'll never be satisfied in classical ballet. It'll never be good enough. I'll never be happy with most of my product.

I love the dancers in the Bolshoi, but all of my Moscow friends are outside the company. A friend introduced me to Vika Gazinskaya, a well-known Russian designer. I met her group. The rest is history.

I have one coach and one coach only. His name is Alexander Vetrov. They brought him in for me when I joined the Bolshoi. He was a dancer with the Bolshoi, and we work very intensely together.

I'm not one who goes to a lot of fashion shows or tries to infiltrate that world, really.

I walk like a duck: very straight up and down. Or like a penguin. It's a dead giveaway that I'm a dancer.

The Bolshoi style is bigger and more emotional, in a way that I love. It has the freshness and intensity that is like what I've tried to achieve in my dance-acting roles.

Ballet is certainly appreciated in New York, but it has been a part of the Russian culture, history and heritage for hundreds of years, so it's much more instilled in the Russian blood.

Ballet is incestuous. This world is smaller than small.