August Bournonville, through his own religious principals, his public behavior, his ballets and his demands upon his dancers, strove for a new ballet era on the socioeconomic level. He wanted ballet to be respected. He wanted dancers to be given the same treatment as that accorded a doctor or a minister. He did not want the male dancer to be looked upon as "half-man". And he fought ceaselessly for better financial conditions for all in the theater. In other lands, actors, singers and dancers were considered something less than first-class citizens. But thanks in great part to Bournonville, such attitudes did not prevail in Denmark.
The King's Ballet Master: a biography of Denmark's August Bournonville by Walter Terry. 1979. Page 55-6.
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