GEORGE BALANCHINE QUOTES
choreographer (1904-1983)
There are no mothers-in-law in ballet.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009
Everything cannot be conveyed by ballet, only those things which can be shown on the stage.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, The Dance Encyclopedia
God creates; I do not create. I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it--from what I see, from what the dancers can do, from what others can do.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, History of Dance
My muse must come to me on union time.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009
If you set out deliberately to make a masterpiece, how will you ever get it finished?
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Balanchine: A Biography
You see a little bit of Astaire in everybody's dancing--a pause here, a move there. It was all Astaire's originally.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Astaire, the Man, The Dancer
There should not need to be a synopsis in the program. The movements and the music should express everything the audience needs to know.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Balanchine: A Biography
It was sad and lonely to be left. You'd go to church and stand there for some time. The school had a chapel. The maser would be there with maybe two or three other students. You had to kill time before dinner. I would go to the reception hall and play the piano. There was no one there, total emptiness.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Balanchine and the Lost Muse: Revolution and the Making of a Choreographer
Most ballet teachers in the United States are terrible. If they were in medicine, everyone would be poisoned.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, The Book of Poisonous Quotes
The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Little Book of Dance Quotations
Dance has to look like the music. If you see music simply as an accompaniment, then you don't hear it. I occupy myself with how not to interfere with the music.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Portrait of Mr. B
He is terribly rare. He is like Bach, who in his time had a great concentration of ability, essence, knowledge, a spread of music. Astaire has that same concentration of genius; there is so much of the dance in him that it has been distilled.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine: An Interview", Horizon, January 1961
Choreography is like cooking or gardening. Not like painting because painting stays. Dancing disintegrates. Like a garden. Lots of roses come up, and in the evening they're gone.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Portrait of Mr. B
I wonder if you'd like to do a little ballet with me. A polka, perhaps. For some elephants.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Balanchine: A Biography
When you have a garden full of pretty flowers, you don't demand of them, "What do you mean? What is your significance?" Dancers are just flowers, and flowers grow without any literal meaning, they are just beautiful. We're like flowers. A flower doesn't tell you a story. It's in itself a beautiful thing.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009
Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Quote Unquote
It is the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician. If the illusion fails the ballet fails, no matter how well a program note tells the audience that it has succeeded.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, The Dance Encyclopedia
Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policemen, always alert, always tense, but see, policemen don't have to be beautiful at the same time.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Little Book of Dance Quotations
Don't think, dear, do.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009
If you like something of someone else's, why not take it? The important thing is that it seem natural and fit in.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009