Ballet Quotes - Page 3

• I took several years of dance lessons that included ballet, tap and jazz. They helped a great deal with body control, balance, a sense of rhythm, and timing.

  Lynn Swann

  Sports, Years, Balance

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• There would never have been a British Ballet without Diaghilev. He had a wonderful influence

  Ninette de Valois

  Influence, Wonderful, British

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• I deliberately made an effort not to become an expert on the ballet.

  Robert Caro

  Effort, Experts, Made

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• I grew up studying ballet; I grew up honing my craft.

  Janice Dickinson

  Crafts, Study, Grew Up

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• Dance is not an exercise. Dance is an art.

  Alicia Alonso

  Dance, Art, Exercise

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• The vocabulary and manner of classical ballet express a high order of discipline and restraint, a sense of harmony with forces larger and more lasting than the individual.

  Marcia Siegel

  Vocabulary, Order, Ballet Class

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  Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.

  George Carlin

  Inspirational, Life, Music

  George Carlin (2002). “Napalm & Silly Putty”, Hyperion

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• Dance light, for my heart it lies under your feet, love.

  John Francis Waller

  Lying, Heart, Light

  John Francis WALLER (1854). “Poems”, p.229

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• We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.

  Albert Einstein

  Dance, Dream, Art

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• On dancing on pointe: Why don't they just get taller girls?

  Henny Youngman

  Girl, Dancing, Tiptoes

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• To brisk notes in cadence beating, glance their many-twinkling feet.

  Thomas Gray

  Feet, Cadence, Notes

  Thomas Gray, John Mitford (1816). “The poems, with critical notes, a life of the author, and an essay on his poetry, by J. Mitford”, p.33

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• A fine picture is but the image of nature; a finished ballet is nature herself.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Fine, Finished

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• Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Life, Dancing

  T.S. Eliot (2015). “The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I: Collected and Uncollected Poems”, p.181, Faber & Faber

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• Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully, and with inevitability. Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!

  Constanze Mozart

  Dance, Dream, Art

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• They danced by the light of the moon.

  Edward Lear

  Dance, Moon, Light

  "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" l. 21 (1871)

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• Ballet's image of perfection is fashioned amid a milieu of wracked bodies, fevered imaginations, Balkan intrigue and sulfurous hatreds where anything is likely, and dancers know it.

  Shana Alexander

  Imagination, Perfection, Dancer

  Shana Alexander (2015). “Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder: A Family Album”, p.235, Open Road Media

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• What's so wonderful about ballet is that it's mind-driven physicality. It's almost a Greek ideal of body, mind, and form.

  Edward Villella

  Dance, Greek, Mind

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• In order that our art may arrive at the degree of the sublime which I demand and hope for, it is imperative for dancers to divide their time and studies between the mind and the body, and that both become the object of their application; but, unfortunately, all is given to the latter and nothing to the former. The legs are rarely guided by the brain, and, since intelligence and taste do not reside in the feet, one often goes astray.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Art, Feet, Order

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• I think most dancers would agree that the art of ballet chooses the dancer, not the other way around.

  Kevin McKenzie

  Art, Thinking, Dancer

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• Dancing and ballets would undoubtedly take on a new lease on life, if the customs established by a spirit of fear and jealousy did not in some way close the path of glory.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Dancing, Way, Path

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• Ballet is good, because it makes you stand up tall.

  Carine Roitfeld

  Tall

  "Carine Roitfeld: 'Vogue was like a golden cage'". Interview with Jess Cartner-Morley, www.theguardian.com. September 14, 2012.

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• Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Dancing, Mind

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.145

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• True art consists in concealing art.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Art, Concealing

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• I should never conclude were I to speak to you of all the misfortunes which have their origin in the faulty carriage of the body. All these defects, mortifying for those who have contracted them, cannot be remedied except in their early stages. A habit born in childhood is strengthened in youth, becomes deeply rooted in adulthood and is incurable in old age.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Childhood, Age, Body

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• In order to dance well, nothing is so important as the turning outwards of the thigh; and nothing is so natural to men as the contrary position.

  Jean-Georges Noverre

  Men, Order, Important

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