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The keynote of the stylization achieved in ballet is: weightlessness. Paradoxically, ballet presents man as almost disembodied: it does not distort man’s body, it selects the kinds of movements that are normally possible to man (such as walking on tiptoe) and exaggerates them, stressing their beauty — and defying the law of gravitation. A gracefully effortless floating, flowing and flying are the essentials of the ballet’s image of man. It projects a fragile kind of strength and a certain inflexible precision, but it is man with a fine steel skeleton and without flesh, man the spirit, not controlling, but transcending this earth. . . .

Strong passions or negative emotions cannot be projected in ballet, regardless of its librettos; it cannot express tragedy or fear — or sexuality; it is a perfect medium for the expression of spiritual love.

“Art and Cognition”
The Romantic Manifesto, 68
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