Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood. "
Twyla Tharp
Expect
Dancers
Me
Related Quotes:
" We don't need to illustrate music; music illustrates itself. "
Twyla Tharp
Music
Need
Itself
" I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated. "
Twyla Tharp
Morning
Purpose
Dream
" When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.' "
Twyla Tharp
Dance
Want
People
" Critics should be looked at simply as commentators. "
Twyla Tharp
Simply
Should
Critics
" I'm not interested in seeing dance die. It's not to my advantage. Nor is it to our culture's advantage or anybody else's. "
Twyla Tharp
Dance
Seeing
Culture
" Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background. "
Twyla Tharp
Harmony
Time
Well
" What I do remember is visualization of the sound of music, seeing bodies in movement in relation to how music sounded, because my mother practiced at the keyboard a lot and I also went to her lessons. As a two year old, three year old I remember seeing things in movement. "
Twyla Tharp
Mother
Music
Remember
" Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism. "
Twyla Tharp
Old
Behind
Experience
" I do at least 75 push-ups a day. "
Twyla Tharp
Least
Day
Push-Ups
" I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter. "
Twyla Tharp
Time
Relax
Energy
" Things change all the time, so why do people make such a philosophical to-do that things are constantly in transition? "
Twyla Tharp
Change
People
Time
" Proust writes, he remembers, physically. He depends on his body to give him the information that will bring him to the past. His book is called 'In Search of Lost Time,' and he does it through the senses. He does it through smell. He does it through feeling. He does it through texture. It is all physically driven, that language. "
Twyla Tharp
Lost
Book
Language
" The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it. "
Twyla Tharp
Dance
Stand
Stand Up
" Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me. "
Twyla Tharp
Best
Watch
People
" Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. "
Twyla Tharp
World
Parents
Creativity
" I do not watch television, never have. "
Twyla Tharp
Watch
Never
Television
" It's always a problem, getting the curtain in at the end of the first act; having enough of a resolve so that you can bring the curtain in and then opening the show a second time is a little bizarre as a tradition. I've always preferred to go straight through. "
Twyla Tharp
Tradition
You
Time
" Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits. "
Twyla Tharp
Creativity
Good
Habit
" I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action. "
Twyla Tharp
Week
Time
Sound
" Nothing is more terrifying to me, really, than the status quo. I'll make mistakes before I keep doing something the same way. "
Twyla Tharp
Nothing
Way
More
" I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don't really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving. "
Twyla Tharp
Dance
Challenge
Think
" My own physicality, not an abstract idea, makes me a choreographer. "
Twyla Tharp
Me
Makes
My Own
" If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance. "
Twyla Tharp
Best
Love
You
" I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching. "
Twyla Tharp
Teaching
Year
She
" I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury. "
Twyla Tharp
Best
Think
Privileged
" I am fairly concise when I work and I work quickly because I think work is done better in a high gear than done our in a gear when everyone's exhausted. Get focused, do it! "
Twyla Tharp
Better
Done
Think
" Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them. "
Twyla Tharp
Process
Soul
You
" I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do. "
Twyla Tharp
Still
Edge
Body
" It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. "
Twyla Tharp
Commitment
College
Wise
" To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving. "
Twyla Tharp
Keep Moving
You
Fight