Nothing is harder to create than brilliant comic ballets, except maybe brilliant full-evening comic ballets. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
When you can't follow a ballet's action, you can always read the program notes. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Ballet companies have their ups and downs, just like the rest of us. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Wayne McGregor's 'Dyad 1929' is a good example of this capable British choreographer's work. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Twyla Tharp set her sights on ballet, and ballet, hungry for major talent, succumbed. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The early giants of modern dance - Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis - barely left traces of their art. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Dance Theatre of Harlem has done a lot of good things well, a lot of good things badly, and a lot of… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
A lot of people have a lot of faith in Karole Armitage. They see her as bold, inventive, indefatigable. 'America isn't working… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Why movie and dance critics are taking 'The Company' seriously, I can't imagine. Are they impressed by Altman's reputation and naive sincerity?… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The Kirov is a great ballet company because it has so many terrific dancers, but it doesn't always know what to do… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Audiences love Paul Taylor, and so do I. Not everything, and not always, but year in, year out, he gives me more… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Ballet Hispanico is far from Irish, and, though it has strong dancers, its Spanishness has always left me unconvinced. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
'Empty Moves' is elegantly and coolly inventive. Two pairs of dancers shadow each other in slow, deliberate rearrangements and manipulations of legs… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
After all these years of saying the same thing about the Alvin Ailey company - terrific dancers, awful repertory - I'm finally… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes,… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
How can educated and sophisticated viewers react so differently to a work of art? Is it just Kulture Klash? No, since most… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
In Georgia, apparently, men are men and women are women - at least in their folk dance. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
All ballet galas are unbearable, but they're unbearable in different ways. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Ballerinas are often divided into three categories: jumpers, turners and balancers. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
'The Sleeping Beauty' is the greatest, most challenging and most vulnerable of classical ballets. Everything can go wrong with it, and all… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
As ye sow, so shall ye reap. When a ballet company spends a lot of money on gimmicky pieces, it's stuck with… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Many people say to me, particularly about my dance writing, 'It sounds just like you.' But it sounds just like me after… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Despite the rigid classicism of the famous Paris Opera school and company, the French have done more than their share to unmoor… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
You can usually tell how healthy a ballet company is by the degree of your interest in the middle ranks of the… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The best thing you can say about Hubbard Street is that if you were a dancer, this is a company you'd fight… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The eternal and uneasy relationship between ballet and modern dance endures, but radically altered in tone and intensity. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
The heart of the classical repertory is the Tchaikovsky-Petipa 'Sleeping Beauty,' and no ballet is harder to get right. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run,… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share Image
Paul Taylor's 'Offenbach Overtures' has lots of zip and charm, and its pair of dueling soldiers in red, who end up starry-eyed about each… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
Jodi Melnick is hotly self-absorbed. Her onstage musicians are much too loud, and like so many narcissistic performers, she goes on much too long:… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
Increasingly, editing means going to lunch. It means editing with a credit card, not with a pencil. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to punctuate the… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
We know how Merce Cunningham works and how he thinks - we've been told, over and over again, by him and by others. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
When I was at Cambridge in the early fifties, there was a school nearby for training Army officers in Russian, and some imaginative genius… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
Many people say to me, particularly about my dance writing, 'It sounds just like you.' But it sounds just like me after I've made… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
Schumann's 'Quintet in E flat for Piano and Strings' is one of the sublime moments in Romantic music. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
What makes a publishing house great? The easy answer is the consistency with which it produces books of value over a lengthy period of… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
For me, the real pleasure in writing is in having an excuse to pursue my curiosity about people who have meant something to me. — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
Ballet in September used to be dead as a dodo. Now, with City Ballet's ingenious decision to give us four weeks of repertory in… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
You can approach 'The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death' in a variety or combination of ways: as a startlingly eccentric hobby; as a series… — Robert Gottlieb Copy Share
