Alvin Ailey

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.

We still spend more time chasing funds than we do in the studio in creative work.

The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off; it's with you all the time.

I am trying to show the world that we are all human beings and that color is not important. What is important is the quality of our work.

Its roots are in American Negro culture, which is part of the whole country's heritage, but the dance speaks to everyone... Otherwise, it wouldn't work.

From his roots as a slave, the American Negro - sometimes sorrowing, sometimes jubilant but always hopeful - has touched, illuminated, and influenced the most remote preserves of world civilisation. I and my dance theater celebrate this trembling beauty.

Nothing personal; I just don't have people over.