Ninette De Valois Quotes

Classical ballet will never die.

Nothing is done easily, first have the thing, then the thing has a success, then all sorts of difficulties arise through the success.

All Ballets' fundamental steps are derived from the folk dances of Western Europe.

No no, we ALL teach each other, whether it's dancing, whether it's singing, whether it's talking, we all listen to each other. That's progress.

And then you have the classical ballerinas, they're like sopranos. Applied to the dance.

Hardly any generation wants to take the whole of the last generation, it just wants to take its best bits.

Nearly everything in life goes in threes and fours.

There's nothing in the world that isn't good, bad, and indifferent.

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

Diaghilev was the first to notice good character dancers and that sort of thing.

Exactly the same with dancing, you can't dance until you've learnt steps, the things your feet can do.

Somebody must always be doing something new, or life would get very dull.

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

Oh yes, after the war, and we were all starving - we had no proper food or anything - no proper shoes.

So it takes years to make a solid company.

It's either not good enough and dies altogether, or it develops.

As time goes on, all schools only get left alive if they have found something special themselves.

The smile is the dance of the face - the dance is the smile of the limbs.