Ballet Quotes

On the other hand, I think it is wonderful for everyone to take ballet classes, at any age. It gives you a discipline, it gives you a place to go. It gives you some control in your life.

My career came together very quickly. I only trained for four years before I became a professional, so I didn't have a lot of time to sit back and be inspired before I took my first ballet class.

I have ballet class every other day for two hours. And for "Six Feet Under", last week there was a sequence where I had to do a whole choreographed dance number, so I had four hours of dance practice every day.

I give myself a Pilates/yoga hybrid mat class almost every day. I also continue to take ballet classes. Both of these practices help me to be aware of my body, my center, and how I move, both with my physical space and my mental space.

I don't feel like my life is that of a superstar! Every day I wake up, I take the train, I go to my ballet class. My everyday life is pretty normal.

I grew up as a dancer, and music and dance are so closely tied, that in ballet class you're listening to all this classical music, and in modern class you're working with a live drummer. It was something that always made me feel really comfortable and I've had a connection to since the beginning.

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.

I grew up with classical music when I was a ballet dancer. Now when I have to prepare an emotional scene, to cry or whatever, I listen to sonatas. Vivaldi and stuff. It's just beautiful to me.

The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion, the steadfast and willing devotion to the labor that makes the classwork not a gymnastic hour and a half, or at the lowest level, a daily drudgery, but a devotion that allows the classroom discipline to become moments of dancing too.

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.

I wanted to be a ballerina. I studied ballet for 19 years.

Contrary to vulgar legend the lives of great ballerinas are not entirely given up to a few minutes of graceful movement every night followed by champagne drunk out of their toeshoes till dawn, in the company of financiers ... no, most of their time is spent in filthy rehearsal halls, inhaling dust, or else in class, daily, year in year out, practicing, practicing even after they are already prima ballerinas.

I have a sister who is a dancer and dance teacher. We grew up dancing together. I wanted to become a ballerina when I was a kid, so she and I were always at ballet conservatories and going to school with our hair in buns.

I actually came to New York when I was 12 and did ballet school for a little while. I was being groomed to be professional, and a lot of the professors and teachers there were drawn to me and thought that I could become a professional ballerina.

I was a ballerina for a good 12 years. When I was 15 I had to stop. It wasn't a choice, it was an injury that prevented me from going forward in ballet unfortunately. Well, fortunately because I wouldn't be doing what I am doing now if that had not happened.

I just stay healthy all year round. I try to feel good in my skin. For me, I have trained in ballet my whole life so my body really feels best when I feel strong and tight and toned, and I think that comes from years and years of constant training as a ballerina. Leading up to the show, getting out there in your underwear, you just want to feel your best mainly in your head than more anything else. Obviously you want to feel good physically too, so it's more just in your head, pushing yourself, approaching this challenge and taking the opportunity to push yourself a little further.

I have too much respect for ballet to dare practice it. I did ask ballerina Megan LeCrone to teach me jetés. She said that was impossible but did observe that I have great feet.

A toe shoe is as eccentric as the ballerina who wears it: their marriage is a commitment.

When one lifts a ballerina, it is not her weight but her nature that causes the problem.

I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.

Some people even think that I'm still just not right for it [ballet]. And I think it's shocking because they hear those words from critics saying I'm too bulky, I'm too busty. And then they meet me in person and they're like, you look like a ballerina. And I think it's just something maybe that I will never escape from, those people who are narrow-minded. But my mission, my voice, my story, my message, is not for them. And I think it's more important to think of the people that I am influencing and helping to see a broader picture of what beauty is.

It's very easy to become selfish and narrow-minded and see ballet as the only thing in life, but there's lots more.

You cannot create genius. All you can do is nurture it.

Dance is not an exercise. Dance is an art.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.

Dancing for the length of time that I did, it centered me in such a way to be really in tune with my body, and I just feel like I'm physically able to do things because of my ballet background. Without ballet, I don't think I'd look graceful at all on screen.

She drove me to ballet class...and she took me to every audition. She'd be proud of me if I was still sitting in that seat or if I was watching from home. She believes in me and that's why this [award] is for her. She's a wonderful mother.

I had never picked up a basketball before. I went through a grueling audition process. It was almost as if I was learning to walk. It would be like teaching somebody to dance ballet for a role.

Ballet has really helped me in every acting role. You have to be very disciplined, you have to be able to control your nerves and perform under pressure, and all those things you have to use in acting when you're on film or going for an audition.

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.

Let us not compare Edward Snowden's situation with that of Chelsea Manning or Jeremy Hammond, who is also imprisoned in the United States. As a result of WikiLeaks' hard work, Edward Snowden has political asylum, has travel documents, lives with his girlfriend, goes to the ballet and earns substantial speaking fees. Edward Snowden is essentially free and happy. That is no coincidence. It was my strategy to undo the chilling effect of the 35 year Manning sentence and it has worked.

My mum said she remembers me asking her if she'd take me to ballet lessons when I was about two and a half. She said I could barely speak, and yet was asking for ballet lessons.

One can be a great artist without being a great technician. There have been many famous ballet stars who did not have the ideal body or total mastery of all aspects of the art form, but on the stage they possessed magnetism-true artistry, by which I mean a charismatic quality. You can work with a coach to try and develop it, but a true artist has the ability to express his inner feelings naturally.

Classical ballet will never die.

Anyone interested in design must be interested in other fields of expression - theater, ballet, photography, literature, music.

Theatre can transform a child's life, just as an early cultural experience whether with opera, ballet, music or art is a wonderful thing because it opens the door to a life-long experience, a life-long enjoyment.

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.

A mistake is simply another way of doing things

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage.

Americans will be amazed to find ho many of the modern dance steps are relics of the African heritage.

Mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group.

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

I do after-school ballet and also hip-hop and jazz.

The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one's feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.

The real American type can never be a ballet dancer. The legs are too long, the body too supple and the spirit too free for this school of affected grace and toe walking.

It's hard with ballet because your aesthetic really is important. It's different from acting and from film. Nobody wants to watch somebody who is sickly thin. And it's interesting because I have danced with people who are ill, have eating disorders, and a light goes off within them.

Ballet is ultimately a logical technique; it favors the shortest, most efficient route from one position into another. This factor gives an aesthetic clarity to all motions.

Having Alexei Ratmansky create a new Romeo and Juliet for The National Ballet of Canada to mark our 60th anniversary is a dream come true. His aesthetic -- steeped in the Russian school but open to contemporary sources -- is ideal for this work and for our company, which, with our classical heritage and our passion for the modern, is perfectly suited to his distinctive dance vision.

My mom always wanted me be a ballerina, and I was just adamant that I wanted to be a track star. I wanted nothing to do with ballet.

I was embarrassed that I even wanted to become an actress because coming from L.A., with two older sisters in the business and a mom who had been a ballet dancer, it was such a cliche.