Hans van Manen has been called the Mondrian of ballet, the Versace of ballet, the Pinter of ballet and the Antonioni of ballet. (His) distinctive personal style mixes formal austerity and glassy elegance with erotic charge.

Each of his pieces reveals our own passions and delusions, pride and solitude, our loud laughter and bitter tears.

As a choreographer, you’re actually always stark naked... I start with nothing. The dancers stand waiting for you. You stand waiting for yourself.

I’m a total Calvinist. Everything I think is superfluous has to be chucked out.

I'm very bad at telling stories, and that's the reason why I never make full-length ballets. I prefer to make it very short and be as precise as possible.

And the deeper ideas? Oh, I just leave them to the audience. They’re intelligent enough to find their own interpretation of what they’re offered visually. I never mean more than what you actually see.

You get those people who think they shouldn’t be influenced, and they should just be themselves. I’d like to know what that is — "being yourself".

Without repertoire, there is no tradition. And without tradition, there is no connection with all that has been done prior to the present. Tradition is not something of the past. Tradition is what we do with the past today. The future is about discovering the good things of the past and building on them.

The thing that’s extremely important — to humanity, I could almost say — is curiosity. But I mean true curiosity. Not the curiosity about what’s happening to the woman next door.

I am absolutely going to go on. I couldn’t do otherwise. I couldn’t imagine any reason not to go on. Yes — count yourself lucky.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find music. Many beautiful pieces have been written to which you can make a nice little dance. But what I’m looking for is compositions where the drama is concealed within them already, as it were.

I look at art like I look at someone I’m in love with. I don’t question it... I just believe it. But if I don’t like something, then I think all sorts. The things I see then!