We are flowers. We just grow.

February 28, 2014 11:53 AM

Mr. B Talks about Ballet:

Only with these people now, on stage, does it exist. It is not sad at all. It is wonderful, it is now. It is alive. It is like a butterfly. I always say butterflies of yesterday don't exist.

[1965 Time magazine Google Books warning. You can zoom in to read using the buttons, and note that the pictures start 4 pages earlier.]
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? (4 comments total)

[Ballet] is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.

I enjoyed Balanchine's works very much for many years, and still do, but I have to say that the older I get the more I find the way he talked about women to be troubling.
posted by JanetLand at 12:09 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

Don't want to threadsit but yeah, there are definitely some parts of the piece which seem to represent outdated attitudes.

As a more modern and more fun counterpoint, let me also add the beautiful Ballerina Project instagram feed to this post.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 12:39 PM on February 28, 2014 [1 favorite]

There are also some great tumblrs for all of your ballerina photos and gif needs, including some (gasp!) that include male dancers. I wonder what he would think of gifs preserving his butterflies?
posted by jetlagaddict at 12:48 PM on February 28, 2014

So, it's not Mr. B Natural?
posted by wittgenstein at 8:29 PM on February 28, 2014