Education Quote by George Balanchine

Balanchine’s line lands like a slap because it treats bad teaching not as an aesthetic nuisance but as a public-health hazard. The medicine analogy is deliberately excessive, and that’s the point: ballet looks refined, even “safe,” yet it’s built on bodies being pushed to their mechanical limits. A careless correction, an ignorant turnout demand, a teacher who can’t distinguish discipline from damage can wreck a dancer as surely as a contaminated prescription. Balanchine doesn’t have to describe injuries; “poisoned” does the work, turning the studio into a clinic where malpractice is normalized.

The intent is not polite critique but triage. Balanchine was a maker of dancers and an architect of an American style; he relied on training systems to deliver bodies capable of his speed, clarity, and musicality. His contempt reads as defensive: if the pipeline is compromised, the art form is compromised. The subtext also exposes a cultural mismatch. In the U.S., ballet grew fast through private studios, inconsistent standards, and a marketplace that rewards charisma and branding more than pedagogy. “Most” is the ugly statistical jab: not a few bad apples, but a structural problem.

There’s irony in a choreographer famous for demanding work calling others reckless. That tension sharpens the quote’s sting. He’s drawing a line between rigor and incompetence, arguing that cruelty isn’t the same as expertise, and that ballet’s prettiness has long been used to launder harm.