“If one had to define one essential gift with which a dancer needs to be endowed, there might be a rush of answers. A beautiful body, grace of line, graciousness of spirit, joy in the work, ability to please, unswerving integrity, relentless ambition towards some abstract perfection. Certainly all these factors determine a dancer's character, and every element exists in some combination within the performing artist's presence.” IfsNeedsCharacterBodyMightBeautifulJoySpiritArtistLinesAbilityAnswersGraceIntegrityPleaseEssentialsElementsAmbitionPerfectionDanceDetermineFactorsCombinationPerformingAbstractDancerBalletRelentlessGraciousnessPerforming ArtsBeautiful BodyPerforming Artist Author:Lincoln Kirstein
“Ballet dancers are a self-chosen elite. To survive and surmount years of disciplinary preparation and seasons of even more arduous performance requires rigid determination and almost mindless self-abnegation. One other factor is difficult to predetermine: without a certain admixture of hysteria - sometimes masking as self-obsession, sometimes even counterfeiting incipient madness - performers, at once acrobats, artists, and animals, make little public impression.” YearsLittlesSelfSometimesArtistCertainDifficultAnimalDeterminationPerformancesSeasonsMadnessDanceImpressionChosenObsessionFactorsPreparationDancerPerformersBalletElitesHysteriaMindlessBallet DancerSelf ObsessionAbnegation Book:Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks Source: Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks
“Dance design is not simply one element; it is that without which ballet cannot exist. As aria is to opera, words to poetry, color to painting, so sequence in steps - their syntax, idiom, vocabulary - are the stuff of stage dancing.” StuffStepsStageDesignColorPaintingElementsDancingDanceBalletOperaVocabularySequenceIdiomSyntaxAria Book:Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks Source: Four Centuries of Ballet: Fifty Masterworks
