Dance Quotes by Robert Gottlieb

The early giants of modern dance - Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis - barely left traces of their art.

— Robert Gottlieb

Twyla Tharp set her sights on ballet, and ballet, hungry for major talent, succumbed.

— Robert Gottlieb

Ballet companies have their ups and downs, just like the rest of us.

— Robert Gottlieb

Wayne McGregor's 'Dyad 1929' is a good example of this capable British choreographer's work.

— Robert Gottlieb

City Ballet remains a great company in perpetual artistic crisis.

— Robert Gottlieb

When you can't follow a ballet's action, you can always read the program notes.

— Robert Gottlieb

Nothing is harder to create than brilliant comic ballets, except maybe brilliant full-evening comic ballets.

— Robert Gottlieb

The first movement ballerina should be a paradigm of strength and authority.

— Robert Gottlieb

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

Many people say to me, particularly about my dance writing, 'It sounds just like you.' But it sounds just like me after…

— Robert Gottlieb

City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away…

— Robert Gottlieb

Despite the rigid classicism of the famous Paris Opera school and company, the French have done more than their share to unmoor…

— Robert Gottlieb

Ballet Hispanico is far from Irish, and, though it has strong dancers, its Spanishness has always left me unconvinced.

— Robert Gottlieb

'The Sleeping Beauty' is the greatest, most challenging and most vulnerable of classical ballets. Everything can go wrong with it, and all…

— Robert Gottlieb

What really matters is that 'Black Swan' deploys and exaggerates all the cliches of earlier ballet movies, especially 'The Red Shoes,' another…

— Robert Gottlieb

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

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

After all these years of saying the same thing about the Alvin Ailey company - terrific dancers, awful repertory - I'm finally…

— Robert Gottlieb

The best seat in the house often depends on the ballet. For instance, much of the first act of 'The Nutcracker' is…

— Robert Gottlieb

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

How can educated and sophisticated viewers react so differently to a work of art? Is it just Kulture Klash? No, since most…

— Robert Gottlieb

'Empty Moves' is elegantly and coolly inventive. Two pairs of dancers shadow each other in slow, deliberate rearrangements and manipulations of legs…

— Robert Gottlieb

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

Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,'…

— Robert Gottlieb

Ballerinas are often divided into three categories: jumpers, turners and balancers.

— Robert Gottlieb

Dance stories, unlike those in opera, are usually simple.

— Robert Gottlieb

All ballet galas are unbearable, but they're unbearable in different ways.

— Robert Gottlieb

Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it.

— Robert Gottlieb

In Georgia, apparently, men are men and women are women - at least in their folk dance.

— Robert Gottlieb

Audiences love Paul Taylor, and so do I. Not everything, and not always, but year in, year out, he gives me more…

— Robert Gottlieb

'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

Dance Theatre of Harlem has done a lot of good things well, a lot of good things badly, and a lot of…

— Robert Gottlieb

'Eclipse' is a concept piece, and its concept centers on 36 large light bulbs strung from above in a geometrical pattern and…

— Robert Gottlieb

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

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

Every great dance company, even when it seems poised in perfect balance, needs constant renewal of both repertory and performers.

— Robert Gottlieb

As for the once-revolutionary 'Agon,' after more than half a century, its lessons and revelations have been so absorbed into the language…

— Robert Gottlieb

I can't claim to 'understand' 'Byzantium,' if any dance work can be 'understood,' but whenever I see it, I sense that it's…

— Robert Gottlieb

'Seven Sonatas,' with its flowing series of meetings between men and women in an identifiable emotional world, is in the mould of…

— Robert Gottlieb

Diana Vishneva is not only a magnificent dancer but a magnificent actress - no one works harder or understands more.

— Robert Gottlieb