When a person first comes into the ballet he should come and see, come and discover. If you take a person to see a great painting in a gallery -- to see a Michelangelo, for instance -- he might say, "So what? It's very boring, just a man standing there. What is good about it?" So you say, "You might not see anything in the beginning maybe, but look longer." And if he comes again and again and stares -- sure enough, the fifth or sixth time, he will see how beautiful it is, how the air becomes transparent and you can smell it; there is a glow -- the space, the hands, everything is fantastically beautiful. And he wants to see more.
It is the same at the ballet. Just come in and stare. Don't listen to anybody, especially not to so-called balletomanes. These slinky people belong to a circle of "connoisseurs" who follow a dancer not because she is good but because she is famous and they want to say, "I know her." Finally they go to her dressing room, she invites them to tea and they instantly become balletomanes. They are as ignorant as before and they have bad taste. These balletomanes breed bad taste and mediocrity.
The people who really appreciate ballet come and just look at it and if they don't understand, come back again.
George Balanchine by Robert Gottlieb. 2004. Pages 200-1.
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