Top 18 Quotes by Sascha Radetsky

American Ballet Theatre's rehearsal studios are at 890 Broadway, an old building where exposed pipes clank and hiss in uneven accompaniment to piano music. The high ceilings wear a toupee of dust. The wall paint peels like a newbie ballerina's toes.

My injuries are more due to attrition than accidents. I have a couple of herniated discs in my neck, and that more than anything else - I had a flare-up last December, and I had actually made the decision to retire before that, but that just cemented the choice. I was flat on my back.

I think guys, because we share a history growing up of being stereotyped, because there are fewer of us in the dance world, that contributes early on to a bond among us. A lot of us share stories of being harassed or teased growing up - there's a certain deep camaraderie that's formed through that shared struggle.

I think I tended toward the Russian training because my first teacher taught a version of Vaganova, and it was drilled into me that that was the best system, and also at the time there were a lot of great Russian stars.

An ex-ABT ballerina, while staging a ballet for the company, once followed a dancer into the bathroom to deliver notes through the stall door. She was known to bark - literally, like a dog - during private rehearsals.

At 11, I went to Misha's school for two summers. So when I wasn't in that school, I was taking classes at David Howard or Robert Denver's studios - kind of legendary places - and there was one summer where Alexander Godunov sort of took me under his wing; the memory's a little murky, but I felt as if I was his project for those weeks.

At Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet Academy, I studied under a brilliant and fiery teacher. This tiny, stuttering old man flew into a rage if his students' white socks failed to reach mid-calf level. Nor could he tolerate floppy hair. We wore hairnets to class - an athletic brigade of short order cooks.