60 Quotes by George Balanchine

The choreographer and the dancer must remember
that they reach the audience through the eye.
It's the illusion created which convinces the audience,
much as it is with the work of a magician

I've got more energy now than when I was younger because I know exactly what I want to do.

Ballet is important and significant - yes. But first of all, it is a pleasure.

See the music, hear the dance.

It's like the time capsule with everything in it. Or like the seed that when you plant it, becomes the enormous tree with leaves and fruit. Everybody was in that little seed, and so everything can open. The tree of dance is like that. It just takes a long, long time to blossom.

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.

The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.

Dance is music made visible

I cannot move, I cannot even want to move, unless I hear the music first.