Choreographers Quotes

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  Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

  Martha Graham

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "The Runner's Book of Daily Inspiration: A Year of Motivation, Revelation, and Instruction". Book by Kevin Nelson, p. 11, 1999.

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• The body says what words cannot.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Photography, Get Well

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

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• There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

  Martha Graham

  Positive, Uplifting, Dance

  "The Life and Work of Martha Graham". Book by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, 1991.

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• Dance is the hidden langauge of the soul, of the body.

  Martha Graham

  Inspirational, Dance, Art

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

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• There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Block, Yoga

  "The Life and Work of Martha Graham". Book by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, 1991.

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• Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

  Martha Graham

  Inspirational, Dance, Mean

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• More and more, I am pulled reluctantly towards a strong horizontal current, which is a place where time is moving at such high velocity, that even our breath is forced to accelerate just in order for us humans to survive. And I have always believed, that it is in our slow exhalation, where the sense of this deep spiritual energy resides. In a world moving so fast, with the growth of technology and information, I am somehow inclined to move against this current, in search of what it might mean to be connected not just spiritually, but also vertically.

  Akram Khan

  Dance, Spiritual, Time

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• No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Blessed, Artist

  "The Life and Work of Martha Graham". Book by Agnes de Mille, p. 264, 1991.

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• Dance training can't be separate from life training. Everything that comes into our lives is training. The qualities we admire in great dancing are the same qualities we admire in human beings: honesty, courage, fearlessness, generosity, wisdom, depth, compassion,and humanity.

  Alonzo King

  Life, Dance, Wisdom

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• Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Volleyball, Mean

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

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• Choreography is simpler than you think. Just go and do, and don't think so much about it. Just make something interesting.

  George Balanchine

  Motivational, Dance, Thinking

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• Good choreography fuses eye, ear and mind.

  Arlene Croce

  Dance, Eye, Mind

  Arlene Croce (1977). “Afterimages”

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• A choreographic idea flows only as fast as the initiator can communicate it to bodies and see them realize it.

  Marcia Siegel

  Inspirational, Dance, Ideas

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• I do not like eating meat because I have seen lambs and pigs killed. I saw and felt their pain. They felt the approaching death. I could not bear it. I cried like a child. I ran up a hill and could not breathe. I felt that I was choking. I felt the death of the lamb.

  Vaslav Nijinsky

  Death, Children, Pain

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• A dancer should learn from all the arts. Go to museums and look at the paintings. See how they balance things. Everything you do in the arts enriches you.

  Alicia Alonso

  Dance, Art, Learning

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• When I'm taking my last breath, I want to look at how I used up the best of myself. How much did I sweat, push, pull, rip, fall, hit, crash, explode?...My dream is to be so well-used that in my last-half second, I just burst into dust.

  Elizabeth Streb

  Life, Dance, Dream

  Elizabeth Streb (2010). “Streb: How to Become an Extreme Action Hero”, p.51, The Feminist Press at CUNY

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• The real self of an artiste lies in art, so when an artiste performs, all the pain, trauma and tension get released through art, be it dancing, painting, singing, writing or even martial arts.

  Mrinalini Sarabhai

  Dance, Art, Pain

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• I am sincerely trying now to create a dance technique based entirely upon corrective exercises, created with a knowledge of human anatomy; a technique which will correct physical faults and prepare a dancer for any type of dancing he may wish to follow; a technique having all the basic movements which govern the actions of the body; combined with a knowledge of the origin of movement and a sense of artistic design.

  Lester Horton

  Dance, Knowledge, Exercise

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• I saw the dance as a vision of ineffable power. A man could, with dignity and a towering majesty, dance. Not mince, cavort, do "fancy dancing" or "showoff" steps. No: Dance as Michelangelo's visions dance and as the music of Bach dances.

  Jose Limon

  Music, Dance, Art

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• Hardly any generation wants to take the whole of the last generation, it just wants to take its best bits.

  Ninette de Valois

  Generations, Want, Lasts

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• Movement should be approached like life - with enthusiasm, joy and gratitude - for movement is life,
  and life is movement, and we get out of it what we put into it.

  Ron Fletcher

  Inspirational, Life, Dance

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• When I miss class for one day, I know it. When I miss class for two days, my teacher knows it. When I miss class for three days, the audience knows it.

  Rudolf Nureyev

  Dance, Teacher, Class

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• Existence is movement. Action is movement. Existence is defined by the rhythm of forces in natural balance. (...) It is our appreciation for dance that allows us to see clearly the rhythms of nature and to take natural rhythm to a plane of well-organised art and culture.

  Rudolf von Laban

  Dance, Appreciation, Art

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• Solo dancing does not exist: the dancer dances with the floor: add another dancer and you have a quartet: each dance with the other and each with the floor.

  Steve Paxton

  Dance, Dancing, Doe

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• Animals cannot speak, but can you and I not speak for them and represent them? Let us all feel their silent cry of agony and let us all help that cry to be heard in the world.

  Rukmini Devi Arundale

  Animal, Compassion, Agony

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