Choreographer Quotes & Sayings

My own physicality, not an abstract idea, makes me a choreographer. — Twyla Tharp

From my personal experience as an analyst and dance choreographer working in the midst of "conflict", I do not think that, in a situation of oppression, intellectuals have a choice of whether or not to reflect the impact of conflict on them and on their society. Oppression, in a way, forces itself upon their work, their creative process. Their basic choice seems to be, then, whether to passively reflect it, or to actively transcend it. Oppression, it seems, has its own way of touching everyone within its reach, irrespective of one's actual involvement in it or will to get involved in it. — Omar Barghouti

Dancing was always part of my culture growing up in Barbados. When I shot my 1st video I worked really hard with my choreographer to perfect the routines. — Rihanna

I design all of my costumes. I like to go out there and feel like I have contributed to every part of what I do. I choose the music, the choreographer, I've obviously chosen my coach, my costumes - all if that falls under my realm of power, my realm of influence. — Johnny Weir

In Hong Kong, particularly, we craft this art for decades. The action choreographer actually is the action director. He takes over and he choreographs with - by himself or with his team, and place the camera where he feels cinematic effect to bring out that choreography. — Donnie Yen

A painter is a choreographer of space. — Barnett Newman

Every dance you make belongs to you. It is part of your collection. When you think of it like that, you'll want to make your next routine the best you've ever made! — Torron-Lee Dewar

I'm fickle, tied to a life that doesn't exist any more - true love, perfect life, good friends. Everything is so damned difficult for me! Like a never- ending dance where the choreographer is never satisfied! — Sarah Iles

When preparing for a concert, I do lots of training. I work with a choreographer to create great moves and then I have to keep my voice strong with lessons. — Miley Cyrus

The game created a parallel world, Sidney thought. It was drama; it was excitement; it was a metaphor for the vicissitudes of life. It was also quintessentially English: democratic (there were teams with all levels of ability), communal (the cricket 'square' was often at the centre of the village green), and convivial (the game was full of eccentric characters.) It was the representation of a nation's cuisine, with its milky tea, cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponge and lashings of beer. It was also beautiful to watch, with fifteen men, dressed in white and moving on green, creating geometrical patterns that looked as if they had been choreographed by a divine choreographer. As — James Runcie

I'm not a good choreographer: I can't remember what I put down. — Donald O'Connor

Afro-Caribbean influences are in me as a creative being the same way Spanish influences were in Picasso's work. I think the notion of labels - "black dancer, black choreographer" -is a ploy to divide and conquer, and to limit. — Garth Fagan

I'm a choreographer and I love watching 'The Bachelorette.' — Taye Diggs

A good choreographer is one that's going to collaborate, teach, guide - everything. The wonderful thing on 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' was that we had Philip Kwok - he choreographed John Woo's 'Hard Boiled,' and in the '70s, he was a martial arts actor, stunt man, fighter, choreographer in Hong Kong. — Mark Dacascos

It's an incredible dilemma to be an artist of color and to always be in denial about that, saying, 'I'm a choreographer first and then I'm black,' when in fact, that's not the case. I'm black first and then I'm also a choreographer. — Donald Byrd

Sure, I could give advice; I could, say, travel the world, listen to music. But all I can really say is do something you want to do and do it well. And if you want to be a choreographer, then you have to make dances. — Mark Morris

Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything. — Trey Anastasio

'Behind The Candelabra' is an HBO movie. It's the Liberace story. Michael Douglass and Matt Damon. I play a small part in it. I play a choreographer who introduces, brings Matt Damon to Las Vegas for the first time. — Scott Bakula

So many dancers feel that what they look like is more important than who they are. This is a real danger for dancers who focus for years on appearances and think of themselves as merely a body. The choreographer can't work with them in the realm of ideas. It's a huge problem if they haven't been connecting internally. If they've decided that what's inside is of little value, they can only try to approximate some kind of look. — Alonzo King

I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission, and that's what I set out to do. — Twyla Tharp

Braque was used to this kind of crap; her mom had been a master choreographer of anxious micromanagement since Braque could remember. — J. Ryan Stradal

One will sooner or later discover they are the choreographer of this dance we call life. — Dawn Tevy

GRINNING, DUCKING MY HEAD FOR BALANCE, I START TO SPIN WILDLY AS I CAN. THAT IS MY FAVORITE DANCE, BECAUSE IT CONTAINS A SECRET. THE FASTER I TWIRL, THE MORE I AM STILL INSIDE. MY DANCE IS ALL MOTION WITHOUT, ALL SILENCE WITHIN. AS MUCH AS I LOVE TO MAKE MUSIC, IT'S THE UNHEARD MUSIC THAT NEVER DIES. AND SILENCE IS MY REAL DANCE, THOUGH IT NEVER MOVES. IT STANDS ASIDE, MY CHOREOGRAPHER OF GRACE, AND BLESSES EACH FINGER AND TOE. — Michael Jackson

Collaborations work when both or however many parties are the right people to be working together for whatever reason - whether it's two musicians or a musician and a filmmaker or a musician and a choreographer, if the combination is right, the possibility exists to make something greater than the individuals could make. But if the combination is wrong than you generally end up with a compromised piece is probably less than the individuals could make. — John Parish

When you're a choreographer and you put so much into a routine that's emotionally driven, those are like my ideas and my little babies that I have here and then I put them out there and they're there to be judged and looked at. When it's all over, it's just such a relief. — Derek Hough

Kun-Yang Lin is a young Taiwanese choreographer with strong American modern dance roots. (His) New York debut at the Cunningham studio were notable for their craft and sturdy spirituality. — Jennifer Dunning

I was a choreographer in the '80s and I was doing these videos. I did an Extreme video, which was really weird having them here. I did "Get the Funk Out". — Adam Shankman

Melissa Barak, an ex-City Ballet dancer and sometime choreographer, has put together an unspeakably dopey and incompetent mess called 'Call Me Ben,' combining ultra-generic dance, terrible dialogue and disastrous storytelling, about the founding of Las Vegas by the gangster Bugsy Siegel, who insists, violently, on being addressed as 'Ben.' — Robert Gottlieb

The living cell is the most complex system of its size known to mankind. Its host of specialized molecules, many found nowhere else but within living material, are themselves already enormously complex. They execute a dance of exquisite fidelity, orchestrated with breathtaking precision. Vastly more elaborate than the most complicated ballet, the dance of life encompasses countless molecular performers in synergetic coordination. Yet this is a dance with no sign of a choreographer. No intelligent supervisor, no mystic force, no conscious controlling agency swings the molecules into place at the right time, chooses the appropriate players, closes the links, uncouples the partners, moves them on. The dance of life is spontaneous, self-sustaining, and self-creating. — Paul Davies

An action choreographer is kind of like a dance choreographer. You choreograph the moves and you let the director, cinematographer take into positioning their cameras. — Donnie Yen

I never danced a step in my life so naturally. My first motion picture was a musical, and Bob Fosse was the choreographer. I didn't exactly dance for Fosse, I just did the best that I could to do what he taught us to do. — Dick York

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed. — Judith Jamison

I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot. — Twyla Tharp

You open a section of 'The New York Times,' and there's a review or a story on a choreographer or a dancer, and there's an informative, clear image of a dancer. This is, in my view, not an interesting photograph. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When a dancer comes onstage, he is not just a blank slate that the choreographer has written on. Behind him he has all the decisions he has made in life Each time, he has chosen, and in what he is onstage, you see the result of those choices. You are looking at the person he is, and the person who, at this point, he cannot help but be Exceptional dancers, in my experience, are also exceptional people, people with an attitude toward life, a kind of quest, and an internal quality. They know who they are, and they show this to you, willingly. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Miss Kuhli (Merrihew had heard it "Cooley" the day before, and had built quite a different picture) was Eurasian. Not since the perfection of ferro-concrete and its self-stressed freedom has architecture been able to match the construction of such eyelids and supraorbital arches as those with which Miss Kuhli had been born. Her hands seemed to be the cooperative work of a florist and a choreographer. Her body had not been designed, but inspired, and her hair was such that it could not be believed at a single glance. — Theodore Sturgeon

We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts ... The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle ... is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician. — George Balanchine

I get into the studio and I try to make visible what's in the choreographer's mind. Sometimes a choreographer wants you to have an idea, and sometimes you are the idea. — Angel Corella

My mother was a choreographer, so music has always been around. — Lindsey Haun

Robbing ourselves of the great pleasures in life only makes us perform worse. We need to be happy, and do things we like doing if we want to excel in whatever it is we're focusing on. — Torron-Lee Dewar

As a dancer, you really try to stay true to whatever the choreographer/artistic director is giving you. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and I have to trust everyone else - I have to trust the dancer. As I was trusted as a dancer, I trust my dancers. — Judith Jamison

On the videos for '1234' and 'My Moon My Man' I wanted to make the songs visible. And, really, what way can you make sound visible other than good old naive dancing? I was working with a choreographer, but I'm not a dancer. Any notion of elegance is impossible with me. — Feist

Wayne McGregor's 'Dyad 1929' is a good example of this capable British choreographer's work. — Robert Gottlieb

I think I just have this need to be a storyteller. That's why I wasn't a great dancer - I couldn't articulate a story. I was a better choreographer. I have the need to to just express myself in that way. I can't explain it. — Rosie Perez

Neo-Hoodoo is the 8 basic dances of 19th century New Orleans' Place Congo- the Calinda the Bamboula the Chacta the Babouille the Conjaille the Juba the Congo and the VooDoo- modernized into the Philly Dog, the Hully Gully, the Funky Chicken, the Popcorn, the Boogaloo and the dance of great American choreographer Buddy Bradley. — Ishmael Reed

You are not a female or a male - you are a dancer. And when I started going into choreography I became part of a team of people making movies. I wasn't a woman choreographer. I was a choreographer. — Anne Fletcher

Martha Graham, along with George Balanchine, is one of the two commanding figures in 20th-century American dance. For those much younger than I am, her genius as a performer will have to be taken on faith - and on the always-suspect evidence of film. What will last, if things go well, is her genius as a choreographer, as a woman of the theater. — Robert Gottlieb

I've had a lot of fun writing percussion music. It feels quite similar to writing computer music. But I found myself in the role of choreographer in a way, worrying about physical movement and such. — Paul Lansky

Every film, every fight choreographer, wants to have a different flair, have a different fight technique. So any film I've done that involved weapons has always been fascinating because everyone is different. — Luke Evans

The choreographer cannot deliberately make a ballet to appeal to an audience, he has to start from personal inspirations. He has to trust the ballet, to let it stand on its own strengths or fall on its weaknesses. If it reaches the audience, then he is lucky that round! — Gerald Arpino

Back in the shadows, in the darkest part of the garden beside the hedge, the skinny choreographer was making out with the younger member of the writer couple. I saw a hand slip inside a shirt and looked the other way. — Herman Koch

I feel such a difference between a philologist/linguist and a linguaphile as, say, a choreographer and a ballerina. — Kato Lomb

I'm a very competitive person, and I always competed with myself. Every year, I'd take six weeks with my band, crew and choreographer to put a new show together. We'd spend eight hours per day, seven days per week putting a show together to beat the last year's show. — Barbara Mandrell

I have maintained a low profile throughout my career but have always done things in my own unique way, be it dancing or dressing up. On the dance floor, I had my own unique steps and often had to lead my choreographer. — Mithun Chakraborty

The choreographer for the Milton Berle show wanted me to audition. I walked away from that. — Danny Aiello

You get used to working with one choreographer. You kind of get stuck in that vein and you work your way out of it, picking up someone else's style, their flavor. It takes a bit of time. — Janet Jackson

I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults. — Judith Jamison

I'm heavily involved in the creative with choreographer Christopher Scott. I go to rehearsals with 'Glee' and then practice with LXD till about midnight. — Harry Shum Jr.

Become the director, producer, choreographer of your own story — Deepak Chopra

While you're worrying about becoming famous, there is someone out there putting in work and not wasting a second of their time. Which person will you be? — Torron-Lee Dewar

A director is a choreographer, both politically and creatively. — William Shatner

A choreographer deals with the movement that you create, and with a creative director it's about the story, the stage, the lighting, the costuming, executing someone's idea, choosing how far to go or how little to go, and blending it so that you feel it, you're emotionally effected. — Laurieann Gibson

From my experience as an actor, choreographer, action director, and producer, I understand the elements and the dynamics of being a film maker. — Donnie Yen

Some things need to be a song. Some things need to be a play. Some things need to be a painting. Some things need to be-though I'd never be a choreographer-some things might ought to be a dance [laughs]. I've found that exploring an idea in different ways, it gives you different opportunities. — Andy Wilkinson

My background is in modern dance. I was a dancer and a choreographer before I was a director, and in dance, you can't cheat. Your leg goes up in the air, or it doesn't. So when I direct, I'm a big preparer. — Lesli Linka Glatter

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays. — George Balanchine

Action choreographer is like talking. When you talk, you have a rhythm. When you act, you have a rhythm. When you're moving your body, you have a rhythm. So as an actor, as a choreographer, the objective is trying to blend everything in - into - ultimately back into that character. — Donnie Yen

When I was doing 'Tales from Hollywood' at the National, I was invited to dinner by the choreographer, Kenneth MacMillan. He told me I had the heart of a dancer and asked me if I'd like to come on at the end of 'Romeo and Juliet' as a friar. I said I'd love to, but sadly, MacMillan died shortly after. — Michael Gambon

I didn't grow up on dance class. I was always natural. I've been in the industry since I was eight and I've always had a choreographer since then. But I never really took ballet or anything like that. — Marques Houston

I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater. — Nick Offerman

I toured with Lady Gaga, and her choreographer is incredibly talented and develops some crazy routines. Lady Gaga is very involved in the dancing, too, and she always wants to have creative input. I had an incredible time with her! — Caity Lotz

Some would assert that Providence was at work shaking out its pockets in Humanity's lap. Other would argue for that mindless choreographer, Chance. Either way it was a simple thing: a lost diary fell into the hands of a soul-sick war hero on a train from Bombay to Jaipur just when he'd grown tired of the scenery and needed something to keep his thoughts from the minefield of his wretched thoughts.
In such mild ways is the groundwork laid for first kisses and ruined lives. — Laini Taylor

Our interpreting the universe as an artifact absolutely requires that we posit an author for it, or a celestial fimmaker, dramatist, painter, sculptor, composer, architect, or choreographer. And no one has been willing openly to posit such an artist for the universe since the American transcedentalists and before them the Medieval European philosophers. — Annie Dillard