188 replies to this topic

[atm711]

The following is a quote from 'The New Yorker' (David Denby) about the film 'The Hours' with Streep, Moore and Kidman:

"The twin themes of 'The Hours' are the variety of human bonds, especially the  bond of love, and the gift that the dying  make to the living.  The miracle is that such sombre notions fit together as surely and lightly as the dancers in a Balanchine ballet."

[grace]

i particularly enjoy the quotes from Tobi Tobias - i guess i should seek out some more of his/her (?) writing to read...

[BW]

"Classical ballet is so unforgiving." Francis Patrelle ;)

[Hans]

"Going to the ballet for the plot is like going to the opera for the recitatives."

--George Balanchine

[Farrell Fan]

"Ballet is the one form of theater where nobody speaks a foolish word all evening -- nobody on the stage at least." -- Edwin Denby

[Paul Parish]

"I am a cloud in trousers"
                                  -- Balanchine (quoting Mayakovsky).

[Paul Parish]

"It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; -- but when a beginning is made -- when the felicities of rapid motion have been once, though slightly felt -- it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more."

Jane Austen, "Emma," vol 2, chapter 11, paragraph 1.

[Alexandra]

I misquote parts of this passage by Edmund Gosse on Bournonville frequently; I'm putting it here so I can find it when I need it

Quote

If one can fancy an old Greek in whose brain the harmonious dances of a divine festival still throbbed, waking suddenly to find himself settled in this commonplace century as dancing-master at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, one can form some notion of the personality of Bournonville.  This poet, to whom the gift of words seems to have been denied, has retained instead the most divine faculty for devising intricate and exquisite dances, and for framing stories of a dramatic kind, in which all the action is performed in dumb show, and consists of a succession of mingled tableau and dances. These dumb poems--in the severely intellectual character of which the light and trivial pettiness of what all the rest of Europe calls a ballet is forgotten -- are mostly occupied with scenes from the mythology and ancient history of Scandinavia, or else reflect the classicism of Thorwaldsen, with whose spirit Bournonville is deeply imbued (Gosse 1890, 157)

[Cygnet]

I've across some some neat quotes.  Here's three by Balanchine from Robert Gottlieb's 1998 Vanity Fair article "Balanchine's Dream:"

-'We were watching Martins and Farrell.  Suddenly, Balanchine said, "It has to be
Peter.  He understands what a ballerina needs."

-"There are no mother-in-laws in ballet."

-"Put a man and a girl on stage and there is already a story; a man and two girls,  there's already a plot."
******************
-"I don't mind being listed alphabetically.  I do mind being treated alphabetically."
  M. Tallchief.
******************
-My wife is the greatest dancer in the world!"  K. Zaklinsky on A. Asylmuratova
1996 Dancing Times article.

-"Maya is able to absorb within a month what some other dancers cannot do in
a decade."  M. Semyonova on Plisetskaya.

-"The only weapon I had was my dancing.  With that I fought like a general
without an army.  If I could have saved all the energy I wasted on my struggle
it would have sufficed me to cover a dozen ballets."  Plisetskaya to G. Smakov
on the persecution she suffered from the KGB, while a superstar at the Bolshoi.

-"Good Morning! I am a pupil of Balanchine."  W. Forsythe to the Kirov Ballet when
he began rehearsals with them for the 4th International Ballet Festival three weeks
ago. --- article by M. Ratanova in Tanznetz magazine dated 3/5/04

Edited by Cygnet, 27 March 2004 - 08:27 AM.

[Mel Johnson]

Cygnet, on Mar 27 2004, 11:15 AM, said:

-"There are no mother-in-laws in ballet."

This is one of the most widely misquoted of Balanchine's attributed sayings, and also patently untrue.  What he said/wrote was:

It is very difficult to express, say, your mother-in-law in classical mime.

[Cygnet]

Sorry Mel.  Gottlieb goofed.  Just goes to show you, you can't trust a journalist to get it right.

[Farrell Fan]

In Deborah Jowitt's excellent biography of Jerome Robbins, there's this quote from Bob Fosse: "I think Balanchine and Robbins talk to God and when I call he's out to lunch."

[carbro]

Thanks for the laugh, FF (and Mr. Fosse).  

Seems there are a lot of choreographers around today who don't get picked up when God's caller ID flashes their numbers.

[sandik]

I'm chagrined to say I hadn't seen this thread until just now.  I love quotations -- I have pages of them pinned up next to my computer (several of them from writers on this website).  I hope I'm not being greedy by posting two.


We thought, “Let’s not say no, let’s say yes.”
Carolyn Brown on Merce Cunningham


The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
James Baldwin

[Farrell Fan]

Another one from Jowitt's Robbins biography, about the making of Brahms/Handel by Twyla Tharp and Robbins:

"She worked swiftly. Robbins exercised his usual need to revise and rethink. 'He basically made me crazy,' recalls Tharp good-humoredly, 'because it would be like, you know, I plan what I'm going to do, I do it, I'm ready to move on; he plans what he's going to do, he does it, he's ready to go back.'"