Daily Inspiration Quote by Ninette de Valois

You can hear the choreographer’s mind working in real time: half apology, half promise, delivered with the brisk practicality of someone who’s spent a lifetime translating bodies into ideas. Ninette de Valois frames the dancer not as a finished artwork but as an evolving project, and the phrasing matters. “Upper part” and “lower part” are plain, almost comically anatomical terms, stripping ballet of its perfume and forcing attention onto mechanics. That choice undercuts the romantic myth of effortless grace; what looks ethereal is, in her telling, an uneven development schedule.

The subtext is a critique of how ballet training historically overvalues one kind of expression. The “upper part” gestures toward port de bras, épaulement, the aristocratic codes of refinement that audiences read as artistry. The “lower parts” are the engine room: feet, legs, turnout, stamina, the punishing virtuosity that modern technique kept escalating. De Valois admits a temporary imbalance because the institution is, quite literally, building itself - repertory, pedagogy, a national style - and triaging attention.

Then she lands on the word “partners,” and the metaphor sharpens. She’s arguing against a split-brain dancer: beauty without power, or power without meaning. Partnership suggests equality and dialogue, not hierarchy. When the body’s halves finally “become partners,” the “wonderful” isn’t just technical polish; it’s integrity. In a field that sells illusion, de Valois is bluntly describing the work required to make the illusion believable - and the cultural ambition behind it: a ballet that can look civilized while being ferociously capable.