August Bournonville Quotes

Denmark, Choreographer
August 21, 1805 – November, 30, 1879.

August Bournonville was a Danish ballet master and choreographer. He was the son of Antoine Bournonville, a dancer and choreographer trained under the French choreographer, Jean Georges Noverre, and the nephew of Julie Alix de la Fay, née Bournonville, of the Royal Swedish Ballet.

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

August Bournonville

Joy is a strength; intoxication, a weakness.

August Bournonville
- Joy
- Strength
- Weakness
It is a fine art because it strives for an ideal, not only in plastic but also in lyrical respect.

August Bournonville
- Art
- Respect
- Plastic
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
The height of artistic skill is to know how to conceal the mechanical effort and strain beneath harmonious calm.

August Bournonville
- Effort
- Artistic
- Skill
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
- Joy
- Dance
- Feelings
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
- Nature
- Dance
- Beauty

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

August Bournonville
- Knowledge
- Dance
- Ability
The beauty to which the Dance ought to aspire

August Bournonville
- Dance
- Beauty