Balanchine Ballet Quotes & Sayings

If Balanchine had any secret, it was one that has endured through two hundred years of classical ballet. It is that dancing correctly in three dimensions, on the music, creates the fourth dimension of meaning. — Arlene Croce

Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty. — William Shenstone

I didn't know if I could act, but I knew I could be a great ballet dancer, and Balanchine put out the carpet for me. — Jacques D'Amboise

Look at where I lived! Four blocks from Lincoln Center. I used to play in the fountain. And then I started taking dance lessons. I was in 'The Nutcracker' for the N.Y. City Ballet when I was 8 and dancing in 'The Firebird' for George Balanchine when I was 9. Believe me, that's something you don't ever forget. — Diane Paulus

I could never make a ballet by wrinkling my brow and concentrating. If you set out deliberately to make a masterpiece, how will you ever get it finished? — George Balanchine

I can always invent movement, and sometimes it can be fitted into the right place, but that is not choreography. It is the music that dictates the whole shape of the work. I do not believe in the permanence of anything in ballet save the purely classical. — George Balanchine

Ballet will speak for itself. About itself. — George Balanchine

Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned. — George Balanchine

I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is THELEMA . — Aleister Crowley

If you don't feel challenged, it's because you're not doing enough. Ballet should never feel comfortable. Comfortable is lazy! If you're comfortable when you dance, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. 100 % is not enough. You have to give 200%. One tendu takes years of hard work and will never be perfect. Everything in ballet is a challenge. — George Balanchine

We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts ... The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle ... is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician. — George Balanchine

Mr. Balanchine was a great gentleman, and he loved his dancers. He was devoted to his company. He came to the ballet every night, and his presence was felt. It was like the whole company was dancing for him. And if he liked you, he trusted you to be yourself. He didn't try to change you and make you into something you were not. — Patricia McBride

At age 14, coming to the U.S., all I knew was American Ballet Theatre, Baryshnikov, Nureyev, and some of the European companies. I barely knew anything about Balanchine. — Carla Korbes

(Self Portrait: Boy Remakes World Before World Remakes Boy) — Jandy Nelson

Ballet is important and significant - yes. But first of all, it is a pleasure. — George Balanchine

In ballet a complicated story is impossible to tell ... we can't dance synonyms. — George Balanchine

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays. — George Balanchine

Feelings are much like waves, we can't stop them from coming but we can choose which one to surf. — Jonatan Martensson

I'm going to be cremated from the neck down. And at my funeral, when people are talking about me, they have to hold my head. And then at the end, they have to kick me into the audience and the audience has to keep me up for at least three hits or you have to start the whole service over. No cradling it - I want legit sets. — Daniel Tosh

Ballet dancing is arduous, strenuous activity. Students are engaged in physical training that rivals the training Olympic athletes undergo. At the same time, they strive for physical perfection not for the prowess alone but as a way of achieving the means necessary to express the pure nature of their art. — George Balanchine

The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener. — George Balanchine