"SDC has a great reputation for putting live music on stage."

"Yes, Carl Vine stuck around. He's now number one composer for choreography."

"I'm interested in people who can take the movement somewhere."

"I mean, I think in the early days we were pretty... pretty British in our entertainment leads."

"There's a line of dancers waiting to get into Sydney Dance Company."

"I think it requires a bit of honesty, Swan Lake."

"I don't think people we'll miss the fact that SDC is way up there and that our profile is high."

"I think the Olympics could help us reach more people."

"And currently, there are four to five new works in the pipeline for upcoming celebrations such as the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Australian Federation, my 50th Birthday, and Sydney Dance Company's 25th Anniversary."

"It's not a company of exponents of my style."

"I look at the dancers and I get the inspiration for the work from them."

"I'm thrilled at the moment because our audiences, you know, they... the demographic is 50% male."

"I wanted to give people - which is fairly bizarre considering my whole life is contemporary dance really - I wanted to give people a really fulfilling sense that they had seen a white classical ballet - in a very pure form."

"We can't afford big symphonies but we commission works that sound rich and symphonic because of the nature of the instrumentation and the people we work with."

"Dance is so joyous."

"I actually build my dreams around the dancers I've got in my company."

"For me it was really important to get the essence out of the music for the story and not, sort of, press the music into the service of the whimsical telling of it."

"If the year 2000 can help us move into the future, that's fine, but I am afraid that people see it as a full stop and that one can take a big breath afterwards - you can't."

"But I also wanted to give them an intelligent emotional journey, without having to suspend reality - to be able to look at those characters and see reasons for the relationships and why what happens happens."

"Normally our season is seven weeks in the Drama Theatre and four weeks in the Opera Theater."

"And dance is wonderful because dance is so immediate."