Quotes by Choreographers

The only thing that happens overnight is recognition. Not talent.
Carol Haney
I used to want the words "She tried" on my tombstone. Now I want "She did it."
Katherine Dunham
Misery is a communicable disease.
Martha Graham
You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you!
Isadora Duncan
You are unique and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost.
Martha Graham
What one has not experienced one will never understand in print.
Isadora Duncan
Dancing on the edge is the only place to be.
Trisha Brown
They never raised a statue to a critic.
Martha Graham
The body never lies.
Martha Graham
They never raised a statue to a critic.
Martha Graham
The body never lies.
Martha Graham
The body never lies.
Martha Graham
Living is a form of not being sure not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes De Mille
Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don't even look at one another. They are just a lot of isolated individuals jiggling in a kind of self-hypnosis and dancing with others only to remind themselves that we are not completely alone in this world.
Agnes De Mille
We want to create an atmosphere in which creation is possible.
Marie Rambert
The finest inheritance you can give a child is to allow it to make its own way completely on its own feet.
Isadora Duncan
You cannot create genius. All you can do is nurture it.
Ninette de Valois
My motto: sans limites.
Isadora Duncan
Living is a form of not being sure not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong but we take leap after leap in the dark.
Agnes De Mille
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Agnes De Mille
No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that others are behind the time.
Martha Graham
I am a choreographer. A choreographer is a poet. I do not create. God creates. I assemble and I will steal from everywhere to do it.
George Balanchine
I don't want people who want to dance I want people who have to dance.
George Balanchine
Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made.
Ted Shawn
The body says what words cannot.
Martha Graham
The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops.
Sir Robert Helpmann
Break the rules, stand apart, ignore your head, and follow your heart,
Paula Abdul
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
I want to dance always, to be good and not evil, and when it is all over not to have the feeling that I might have done better.
Ruth St. Denis
Without passion, all the skill in world won't lift you above your craft
Twyla Tharp
I danced frightening things. They were frightened of me and therefore thought that I wanted to kill them. I did not want to kill anyone. I loved everyone, but no one loved me, and therefore I became nervous.
Vaslav Nijinsky
Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made.
Ted Shawn
There are situations of course that leave you utterly speechless. All you can do is hint at things. Words, too, can't do more than just evoke things. That's where dance comes in again.
Pina Bausch
To me, the body says what words cannot. I believe that dance was the first art.
Martha Graham
Dancing is very like poetry.
Martha Graham
If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music. If you turn the music on, that body will become an extension of what you're hearing.
Judith Jamison
You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that." If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?
Judith Jamison
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
The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.
Judith Jamison
I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance.
George Balanchine
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
Martha Graham
Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
Twyla Tharp
To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful.. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking
Agnes De Mille
People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.
Martha Graham
To understand what I am saying, you have to believe that dance is something other than technique. We forget where the movements come from. They are born from life. When you create a new work, the point of departure must be contemporary life -- not existing forms of dance.
Pina Bausch
Dance is the hidden language of the soul
Martha Graham
There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and 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. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is on a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
Martha Graham
I used to want the words "She tried" on my tombstone. Now I want "She did it."
Katherine Dunham
I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.
Martha Graham
Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember , it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others.
Twyla Tharp
I think what doesn't kill you makes you a better human being. It opens your eyes, your heart, and your mind.
Derek Hough
Don`t let a little fear stop you from getting what you want
Mahmoud Reda
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
Martha Graham
The only sin is mediocrity.
Martha Graham
Politicians and others are stuck in a horrible world where being emotional in any way counts as being unbalanced, and unable to think clearly. For me, emotions are thought.
Hofesh Shechter
Sometimes we focus too much on the lyrics that we forget to dance to the music. And sometimes we dance to the music and don't listen to the lyrics. Let the rhythm guide you. Let the lyrics inspire you.
Alexa Anderson
When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it.
Twyla Tharp
Life truly is precious. Gather every moment of it into your arms & embrace it.
Paula Abdul
I must confess to generally hating sections entitled “how to read this book” and soon. I feel that, if I bought it, I should be able to read it any way I damn well please!Nevertheless, I feel some guidelines may be useful.
Paul Taylor
Most dancers I know, especially the talented and successful ones, seem to possess [my dog's] knack for living moment to moment. You see, their idea of time is related to those infinitely short moments when they are onstage being their superselves.
Paul Taylor