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.