Quotessence
Home / Topics / Ballet Quotes

Ballet Quotes

Browse 790 quotes about Ballet.

Related topics

Ballet Quotes

“Miután meghiúsult a menekülési terve, Sura egy helyben toporogva bevárta őket. Szejit szavait hallva nagy kő esett le a szívéről. - Kedves Tatjána, hadd mutassam be neked ezt az elragadó kisasszonyt. Alekszandra Julianovna Verjenszkaját. Aztán Sura felé fordulva felsorolta a többiek nevét. - A Nagyszínház egyik legnépszerűbb táncosa, Tatjána Tchoupilkina, és becses cimborám, Dzselil Kamilov.”

“Caution not spirit, let it roam wild; for in that natural state dance embraces divine frequency.”

“Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer.”

“Life is an affair of mystery; shared with companions of music, dance and poetry.”

“Ballet shoes... I cannot play with them like they're toys. But when the music is playing they get deep on my toes.”

“Classic Ballet, Keep away, keep building your creaky fairy castles, keep cloning clones and meaningless manners, hang on to your beanstalk ballerinas and their midget male shadows, run yourself out of business with your tons of froufrou and costly clattery toe shoes that ruin all chances for illusions of lightness, keep on crowding the minds of blind balletomanes who prefer dainty poses to the eloquent strength of momentum, who have forgotten or never known the manings of gesture, who would nod their noses to barefoot embargos ("so grab me" spelt backwards). Continue to repolish your stiff technique and to ignore a public that hungers for something other than a bag of tricks and the empty-headedness of surface patterns. Just keep it up, keep imitating yourself, and, , go grow your own dance makers. Come on, don't keep trying to filter modern ones through your so-safe extablishment. We're to be seen undiluted, undistorted, not absorbed by your hollow world like blood into a sponge. Yours truly, A Different Leaf on Our Family Tree”

“Clearly it is simplest never to marry at all,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. These stories, ridiculous fairy tales though they were, had tainted the evening. Like Vivian, I preferred to think of The Sleeping Princess as a magical spectacle of fairy godmothers and characters from folklore. But then we had both learned the hard way about heartbreak and loss.”

“I wanted to be recognized in the stories I loved so badly. With ballet, it doesn't matter where you come from. It matters how good you are." "That's why you trained so hard." "Yes, but it wasn't just that." Before things were bad, my mother used to ask why I was so drawn to the sea. I told her that although the sea is dangerous beneath the surface, people still find beauty in it from above. It's still something to be adored, even if it is usually only ever loved at a distance. That's why I loved performing. For a moment, I could just be admired. Not a danger to everyone around me. Like the sea, I have a tendency to destroy things. Beautiful things. Sacred things. The sea takes things she loves--- like coral or shells--- and obliterates them to sand. I've always told myself she doesn't mean to; it's just the way she is. She can't choose when the hurricanes roll in or when the tsunamis rise. They flow out of her as they should. Maybe even in ways she doesn't understand. Ballet makes me feel like the ocean--- silently unfurling with all the rage I've buried deep down, yet still manifesting in something beautiful. For those few moments, with all eyes on me, I'm heard. Ballet tells stories, and this is how I tell mine.”

“Did any of you ever see Doctor Tetrazzini perform? I say perform advisedly because his operations were performances. He would start by throwing a scalpel across the room into the patient and then make his entrance as a ballet dancer. His speed was incredible: "I don't give them time to die", he would say. Tumors put him in a frenzy of rage. "Fucking undisciplined cells!" he would snarl, advancing on the tumor like a knife-fighter.”

“Think of it this way. I’m like the end of the movie.” “The end of what movie?” “You know how in the movies there’s always this person who wishes they were super successful, and then they get everything they thought they ever wanted. The fame, the money. All of it. Time passes, and they realize it’s not enough and long for the simple life when they did art for art’s sake. When there were no pressures or fake people. They give it all up and go back to being ordinary.” I flash him my coyest smile. “I just skipped all the fame, fortune, and chaos part and went straight to the ending where I dance for the fun of it.” Tyler runs his hands over my hair and then cradles the back of my head. “The end of the movie, huh? There’s one thing missing from your plotline, you know that?” “What?” “A romantic interest.”

“Well, with every pirouette, we entrust the weight of our bodies on the tips of our toes, with the promise of them delivering us in cyclones. Our arms, always elegant it may appear, struggle beneath the heaviness our muscles battle to stay fluid. It looks effortless--- every allongé, every piqué as simple as the natural flow of water. But every dance, every move our bodies make, is a war against itself. It's magnificently dangerous. Like... blooming into an ocean. That's what it feels like. An ocean. Deep and rich all-encompassing, drowning out everyone in our presence. They sink into the moment, succumb to every movement, and simply just admire.”

“Nijinsky in 'Le Spectre de la rose' was like nothing I'd seen before. He danced a fifteen-minute solo and it passed like a dream. He was wearing a silk tricot, palest nude, onto which were pinned dozens of silk Bakst petals, pink and red and purple. The most exotic creature, so beautiful, like a shiny, graceful insect on the verge of flight. He leapt as if it cost him no effort, lingering in the air far longer than was possible, and seemed not to touch the stage between times. I believed that night that a man might fly, that anything was possible.”

“Para bailar, hay que merecerlo. Bailar sobre un escenario y delante de público constituye la mayor de las felicidades. A decir verdad, incluso sin público, incluso sin escenario, bailar es el colmo de la embriaguez. Una alegría tan profunda justifica los sacrificios más crueles. La educación que os damos aquí tiende a presentar la danza como lo que es: no un medio sino una recompensa.”

“A major assumption that underlies this selection is that it is only within work that is progressive, experimental or avant-garde that staid, old-fashioned images and ideas about gender can be challenged and alternatives imagined. I have never seen a ballet performance that has not disappointed me.”

“When I ache, when I'm tired or just lonely living in the town on my own, I know I have to keep on going. I walk into my theater and see my stage which still calls out to me and pleads with me, "Use me. Create for me." It's there ready to offer itself for more creatively [sic]. It is up to me to use it again. My theater says to me, "Take me. Do something with me. I'm ready for the challenge. Give me something to live for; something to look forward to.”

“On the television screen were ballerinas. A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm. "That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel. "Huh" said George. "That dance-it was nice," said Hazel. "Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.”

“Dancing came to me naturally. Like eating or sleeping, it felt like second nature. It was simply a part of me. I answered its call because I had no other choice. Ignoring it wasn't an option. The force was too great. I never imagined in those early days that dancing would become my profession. I didn't even know that dancing was a profession. I just knew I had to do it.”