George Vecsey

Why is the N.F.L. so popular? The N.F.L. grew in the comfort zone after World War II. People had money and time. A popular American sport got bigger.

Into La Bombonera danced the most agile, rhythmic, beautiful, sensuous people I have ever seen. And that was just the fans.

Sometimes, sport is just plain pleasing to the eye, like watching La Belle France flit by on television during the Tour de France. I can do that for hours.

The thing about Paris, it's a great city for wandering around and buying shoes and nursing a cafe au lait for hours on end and pretending you're Baudelaire. But it's not a city where you can work.

Never forget the power of silence, that massively disconcerting pause which goes on and on and may at last induce an opponent to babble and backtrack nervously.

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.