Twyla Tharp Quotes - Page 5

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.

When creativity has become your habit; when you've learned to manage time, resources, expectations, and the demands of others; when you understand the value and place of validation, continuity, and purity of purpose, then you're on the way to an artist's ultimate goal; the achievement of mastery.

You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.

Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.

I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.

I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night.

It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

You only need one good reason to commit to an idea, not four hundred. But if you have four hundred reasons to say yes and one reason to say no, the answer is probably no.

Whenever I feel I'm working in a groove it's invariably because I feel I am being the benefactor in the situation rather than the beneficiary. I am sharing my art with others, lending my craft to theirs, interest-free with no IOU.

There really is nothing I ever had access to that I didn't appreciate.

I always, somehow, knew that I was going to dance.

There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.

A dancer's life is all about repetition.

Art is running away without ever leaving home.

You can keep on chewing gum for ten hours, but after about a minute and a half you've got all the good out of it.

Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them.

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 often say that in making dances I can make a world where I think things are done morally, done democratically, done honestly.

Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naive prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let music flow from his fingertips. It's a nice image for selling tickets to movies, but whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.

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.

The art of these Fifties movies was in sustaining forever the moment before sex.

I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.

I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about.

I've always found it necessity to strip away everything but the most fundamental ways to work - the rest is style.

Once you accept the power of spine in the creative act, you will become much more efficient in your creativity. You will still get lost on occasion, but having a spine will anchor you.