Lincoln Kirstein, SAB catalogue

Every artistic medium has its peculiar nature which allows it to express some things better than any rival medium and prohibits it from expressing other things altogether...in its dazzling display of physical energy, the ballet expresses, as no other medium can, the joy of being alive... W.H. Auden, "A Past and Present Eden", essay from The Nutcracker souvenir program, 1954

Classical ballet is a unified system of movements gradually designed over the ages to constitute a veritable language of the dance. The exercises and steps that compose it are aimed at extending the scope of human motion, whether on the ground, as in arabesques, attitudes, developpes, turns, etc., or in leaps and batterie. Dancing on toes not only enhances the impression of airiness and fleetness, but makes possible a highly effective series of steps such as fouettes and chaines for which the foot is used to pivot on. All ballet movements stem from the five absolute positions of the feet which oblige the dancer to turn his leg outward from the hip, greatly increasing his mobility and extension, and from definite positions of the arms, torso and head. As training develops, the contrast between male and female dancing, so vital to effective scenic performing, is increasingly emphasized. This system, taught in the American Ballet classes, forms the basis of all the courses given at the School of American Ballet. Like the alphabet, every movement is learned separately, then woven into the choreographic poems we call ballets.

Lincoln Kirstein, School of American Ballet catalogue, 1955 

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