August Bournonville Quotes

#1. The beautiful always retains the freshness of novelty, while the astonishing soon grow tiresome.

August Bournonville

#2. The beauty to which the Dance ought to aspire is not dependent upon taste or pleasure, but is founded on the immutable laws of Nature.

August Bournonville

#3. The art of Mime encompasses all the feelings of the soul. The Dance, on the other hand, is essentially an expression of joy, a desire to follow the rhythms of the music.

August Bournonville

#4. Mannerism is not character, and affectation is the avowed enemy of grace. Every dancer ought to regard his laborious art as a link in the chain of beauty, as a useful ornament for the stage, and this, in turn, as an important element in the spiritual development of nations.

August Bournonville

#5. It is a fine art because it strives for an ideal, not only in plastic but also in lyrical respect.

August Bournonville

#6. Joy is a strength; intoxication, a weakness.

August Bournonville

#7. The Dance is an art because it demands vocation, knowledge, and ability.

August Bournonville

#8. It is not so much upon the number of exercises, as the care with which they are done, that progreses and skill depend.

August Bournonville

#9. The Dance can, with the aid of music, rise to the heights of poetry. On the other hand, through an excess of gymnastics it can also degenerate into buffoonery. So-called "difficult" feats can be executed by countless adepts, but the appearance of ease is achieved only by the chosen few.

August Bournonville

#10. The height of artistic skill is to know how to conceal the mechanical effort and strain beneath harmonious calm.

August Bournonville