Martha Graham Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• Dance is the landscape of man's soul.

  Martha Graham

  Men, Soul, Landscape

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• To me, this acquirement of nervous, physical, and emotional concentration is the one element possessed to the highest degree by the truly great dancers of the world. Its acquirement is the result of discipline, of energy in the deep sense. That is why there are so few great dancers.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Emotional, Discipline

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• Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Passion, Dancing

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood memory”, Doubleday

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• My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.

  Martha Graham

  Dark, Light, Years

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• The center of the stage is where I am.

  Martha Graham

  Stage

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood memory”, Doubleday

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• At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it!

  Martha Graham

  Paris, Dancing, Ballet

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• I believe that we learn by practice.

  Martha Graham

  Believe, Practice, I Believe

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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• One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.

  Martha Graham

  Laughing, Comedian, Faces

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage.

  Martha Graham

  Philosophy, Moving, Land

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• I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies - bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.

  Martha Graham

  Beautiful, Believe, Mean

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.

  Martha Graham

  Mean, Mouths, Gestures

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

  7 Copy quote

• I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it.

  Martha Graham

  Mean, Dancer, Trying

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• Sometimes it's blood memory... not the blood your mother and father gave you... but that which stretches back two or three thousand years.

  Martha Graham

  Mother, Memories, Father

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• Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery - what it all means, the way the little bone near the ankle relates itself to the floor for a perfect stance, a perfect plie.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Discovery, Dancing

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

  15 Copy quote

• You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.

  Martha Graham

  Dancer, Body, Awareness

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood memory”, Doubleday

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• How many leaps did Nijinksy take before he made the one that startled the world? He took thousands and thousands and it is that legend that gives us the courage, the energy, and arrogance to go back into the studio knowing that while there is so little time to be born to the instant, you will work again among the many that you may once more be born as one. That is a dancer's world.

  Martha Graham

  Knowing, Giving, Dancer

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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• Pity is a corroding thing.

  Martha Graham

  Pity

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• Theater used to be a verb; it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place.

  Martha Graham

  Drama, Verbs, Nouns

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• Nobody cares if you can't dance well.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Healing, Ballet Class

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• You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening - it isn't - it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder.

  Martha Graham

  Life, Giving, Sound

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• It is difficult to see the great dance effects as they happen, to see them accurately, catch them fast in memory. It is even more difficult to verbalize them for critical discussion. The particular essence of a performance, its human sweep of articulate rhythm in space and in time has no specific terminology to describe it by.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Memories, Essence

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• In 1980, a well-meaning fundraiser came to see me and said, "Miss Graham, the most powerful thing you have going for you to raise money is your respectability." I wanted to spit. Respectable! Show me any artist who wants to be respectable.

  Martha Graham

  Powerful, Artist, Missing

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood memory”, Doubleday

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• Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Heart, Fever

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• To me, a building - if it's beautiful - is the love of one man, he's made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.

  Martha Graham

  Beautiful, Dance, Men

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• I have heard stories that it was love at first sight for both of us, that we disappeared to a guest room at Merle's house, had our meals sent up, and didn't emerge for several days. This is absolutely untrue. I would never behave like that as a guest in someone's home. Carlos and I went to my beach house.

  Martha Graham

  Beach, Home, Sight

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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