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Arlene Croce Quotes

Good choreography fuses eye, ear and mind.

Good choreography fuses eye, ear and mind.

Arlene Croce
Dance, Eye, Mind
Arlene Croce (1977). “Afterimages”

Ballet is only good when it is great.

Arlene Croce
Dance, Ballet, Ballet Dance
Arlene Croce (1977). “Afterimages”, Random House Inc

To think of criticism as a conversation is to think of it as a social act, something that puts you in touch with other people who may think the way you do.

Arlene Croce
Thinking, People, Criticism

Writing is the process by which you explain to yourself what happened to you.

Arlene Croce
Writing, Process, Happened

If Balanchine had any secret, it was one that has endured through two hundred years of classical ballet. It is that dancing correctly in three dimensions, on the music, creates the fourth dimension of meaning.

Arlene Croce
Dance, Years, Two

True genius doesn't fulfill expectations, it shatters them.

Arlene Croce
Acceptance, Expectations, Genius
Arlene Croce (2003). “Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker: An Arlene Croce Reader”, p.48, Macmillan

When I left the theater… I was thinking that I’d seen a classic of American dance. It confers a mythic dimension on ordinary aspects of our daily lives – it’s unfaked folk art. The dancers, crashing wave upon wave into those falls, have a happy insane spirit that recalls a unique moment in American life – the time we did the school play or we were ready to drown at a swimming meet. The last time most of us were happy in that way.

Arlene Croce
Art, Fall, School

Style consists in maintaining a convincing reality all through a piece. It's like wearing a garment that looks as if it might have been made for you even if it wasn't.

Arlene Croce
Reality, Style, Looks

It is through strength of technique that the body stays in possession of music.

Arlene Croce
Dance, Ballet, Technique
Arlene Croce (2003). “Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker: An Arlene Croce Reader”, p.606, Macmillan

a masterpiece doesn't so much transcend its time as perpetuate it; it keeps its moment alive.

Arlene Croce
Excellence, Genius, Alive
Arlene Croce (2003). “Writing in the Dark, Dancing in The New Yorker: An Arlene Croce Reader”, p.129, Macmillan

It is not the man speaking through the woman, it is the woman speaking through the man.

Arlene Croce
Men, He Man
"IS THE MUSE DEAD?" by Arlene Croce, www.newyorker.com. February 26, 1996.

Why are men impersonating women funny while women impersonating men are not? It is a matter of gravity. A heavy thing trying to become lighter is automatically funnier than a light thing trying to become heavy.

Arlene Croce
Humor, Men, Light

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