Twyla Tharp

And I saw in an older class of young girls, an arabesque, and one leg was not slightly behind.

The teacher came and literally pinned the leg behind with one arm and drew the shoulder out this way, literally pushed her and then released her.

And that's how they teach.

You think that's going to happen in America?

I don't think so.

And that's what it takes to create a line of people who at the bar hit exactly the same arabesque.

It's both a thing of extraordinary beauty and a thing of incredible...

lack of choice because that arabesque is going to be set for life in that one angular demarcation, right?

And, you know, heaven knows here in the West we like to encourage all kinds of wanderings around, which is hard to get through the head of a child who's been trained in this way to stay within those parameters.

And it says something also, obviously, about the political situation, right?

Those kids don't have a lot of choice.

They toe the line.

Absolutely.

And it's, I mean, for a person who works sometimes to what's called unison, there are times when you want, I don't do it that often, it's a lot of work, and I don't like what it says about democracy.

But if you need to have unison, you want unison.

And that means an exact agreement on time and space.

Now, your other question about what about different body types and so forth, I can accommodate that because I can gain my unison from the center.

What we're talking about at the ballet here, it gains it from the periphery, from the exterior point, from the broad reach.

I'll accept my broad reach is not going to be actually in uniform.

but my center is going to be, and I'll make that.