Twyla Tharp
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms.
If a thing moves, it lives.
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.
I'm obviously always interested in the dancer who's an athlete and vice versa. I expect dancers to be in condition like an athlete is and to challenge themselves in the same way, to the same physical degree.
I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity.
Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.
I'm not satisfied sitting in just the world of abstract work.
When I started thinking seriously about learning the rules of narrative, I thought, 'You've learned the rules of dancing from the ballet; what's the matter with learning the laws of theater from the people who know how to do it?'
I've always felt compelled to explore range, because, as far as I know, we're only here once. So let's see how much we can encompass.
What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.
Work is work; wherever I'm working, I do the best I can. If the actual dollars come from investors as opposed to taxpayers and patrons, what's the difference?
In the not-for-profit world, there can be wastefulness because there's not the desperate urgency of when you're on a clock.
People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.'
There is a moral dimension, for me, in anything that's any good.
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.
I do not watch television, never have.
Who a dancer is physically feeds into character for me. Always has.
Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don't have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.
I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
I've always found it necessity to strip away everything but the most fundamental ways to work - the rest is style.
It's very important to work myself physically as hard as I can.
No artist is well served in thinking what will happen to their works. The best one can hope is that they'll enter the mainstream, and people will pull bits and pieces from them.
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.
When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art.
'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.
If I didn't believe in myself as a dancer, I wouldn't choreograph.
My own physicality, not an abstract idea, makes me a choreographer.
The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.
Things change all the time, so why do people make such a philosophical to-do that things are constantly in transition?
Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere.
It's very difficult for me to do fund raising for my own organization if I'm working for other companies because sponsors will say, 'Well, hey, man, if she's doing a ballet for Ballet Theatre, we'll give money to Ballet Theatre.'
I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days.
I've read probably 25 or 30 books by Balzac, all of Tolstoy - the novels and letters - and all of Dickens. I learned my craft from these guys.
I think Tolstoy had an unbelievably complicated relationship with women.
Balzac loved courtesans. They were independent women, and in the 19th century, that was a breed that was just evolving.
My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.Collection: Inspirational
Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.Collection: Inspirational
dance is simply the refinement of human movement - walking, running, and jumping. We are all experts. There should be no art form more accessible than dance, yet no art is more mystifying in the public imagination.Collection: Dance
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.Collection: Passion
If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won't fail. You'll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that's failure by erosionCollection: Erosion
Every work of art needs a spine – an underlying theme, a motive for coming into existence. It doesn't have to be apparent to the audience. But you need it at the start of the creative process to guide you and keep you going.Collection: Art
The more you know, the better you can imagine.Collection: Imagine
Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.Collection: Ideas
Creativity requires quite a lot of faith - not just in yourself but also in the knowledge that you have the right to proceed, even when you may not know exactly what you're doing.Collection: Creativity
Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.Collection: Art
Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.Collection: Humor
Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead.Collection: Life And Love