Quotes & Sayings About Choreographers

A painter is a choreographer of space. — Barnett Newman

You had to give, uh, a lot of consideration to the fact that, uh, the artist had to come back into the mike area and start singing, especially the background singers, you know. And you had to make sure they had a couple of bars of music in order to catch their breath. And uh, in many cases a lot of choreographers didn't give that, uh, the proper thought. — Cholly Atkins

What guarantees - or at least semi-guarantees - good ballets is good choreographers, and they are thin on the ground. — Robert Gottlieb

I collaborated on most of my dance numbers, literally 50/50, with the choreographers I worked with. — Jessie Matthews

Shakespeare has always been up for grabs, and choreographers have every right to use him any way they choose. — Robert Gottlieb

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

Dance in the most perishable of the arts. Ballets are forgotten, ballerinas retire, choreographers die
and what remains of that glorious production which so excited us a decade ago, a year ago, or even last night? — Jack Anderson

The mystery of Christopher Wheeldon deepens. Yes, he's the most talented of the younger ballet choreographers - indeed, where's the competition? Yes, he's particularly good at nurturing dancers and identifying their essential qualities. — Robert Gottlieb

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It's a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as - as diverse, as different from each other as Donald McKayle and Bill T. Jones, or Jawole Zollar and John Butler, Lar Lubovitch, you know, and Judith Jamison. — Judith Jamison

Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it. — Robert Gottlieb

The one reason people don't take dance seriously is because a lot of choreographers don't take dance seriously. — Mark Morris

It's easier for me to go to Russia and train with top coaches and choreographers there than go to Colorado Springs and train with 14 of my competitors. — Johnny Weir

The number of e-mails and letters that I get from choreographers, from sculptors, from composers who are being inspired by science is huge. — Brian Greene

That's one of the main things I do, work with choreographers. I've been doing it a long time, and it's a real important part of my life as a soundmaker, making music for dance. — Zeena Parkins

It's like a dance, to choreograph a fight is like a dance. It's very specific. You have to carefully plan it out. Because if someone gets hurt, then we didn't do our job, someone screwed up. The fight choreographers and the actors involved, we messed up somewhere. — Bryan Cranston

City Ballet has to develop choreographers of stature and a new approach to coaching before everything we value about it fades away and, in the great tradition of the Cheshire Cat, there's nothing left but Peter Martins' smile. — Robert Gottlieb

Choreographers use me as the old guy who still dances. Not that I put on white tights. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

One of the eternal mysteries of ballet is how untalented choreographers find backers for their work, and then find good dancers to perform in it. Is it irresistible charm? Chutzpah? Pure determination? Blackmail? Or are so many supposedly knowledgeable people just plain blind? — Robert Gottlieb

Hell may have all the best composers, but heaven has all the best choreographers. — Neil Gaiman

Unlike a lot of choreographers, I don't always start with the music. I often start with a visual artist, and then find music that fits the world of that visual artist. — Wayne McGregor

When we did concerts, we wanted them to be theatrical events - collaborations with designers, choreographers, and directors - because we thought traditional rock concerts were boring. — Neil Tennant

What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas. — Misty Copeland

I have the most respect for Zach Woodlee. He is one of my favorite - and one of the most capable - choreographers out there right now. — Harry Shum Jr.

All writers, musicians, artists, choreographers/dancers, etc., work with the stuff of their experiences. It's the translation of it, the conversion of it, the shaping of it that makes for the drama. — Toni Cade Bambara

We learnt a lot because we got in with real choreographers who tell you what they need from a song, because a song has to advance the story. Then real directors like Mike Nichols tell you where you can have 'B themes' and 'C themes', and we go oh yes, B themes and C themes! So we were taught in the finest school amongst the finest people. And also by the school of experience. — Eric Idle

For most of human history, we could only watch, like bystanders, the beautiful dance of Nature. But today, we are on the cusp of an epoch-making transition, from being passive observers of Nature to being active choreographers of Nature. The Age of Discovery in science is coming to a close, opening up an Age of Mastery. — Michio Kaku

Back from 'Roam if she wants to'!" yelled Renee. She had that condition unique to choreographers and directors, where they can listen to the same line or lyric thousands of times without ever getting it right. — Mara Wilson

I know a lot of choreographers prefer to do abstract dance and not be bothered with a story, but even when I'm asked to do classical ballet or a modern piece, I still want to tell a story. — Susan Stroman

We are just at the studio, me and my choreographers, we are spending like 30 nights and we are thinking, what is my next dance move? Because in Korea there are huge expectations about my dancing. So it was a lot of pressure. — Psy

There are as many types of Butoh as there are Butoh choreographers. — Tatsumi Hijikata

You cannot dance physically certain things. But look at tango dancers or flamenco or Japanese classical theater. You can, if you're smart enough and you collaborate with the right choreographers, you could really dance your age. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mia Michaels is to my mind one of the most interesting choreographers alive right now and my colleague and my friend from So You Think (You Can Dance). — Adam Shankman

It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes.
This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers — Terry Pratchett

As a dancer I had worked with really hard choreographers, Jerome Robbins being the toughest. And you learned what it is to hit against a brick wall. And you learned pretty quickly to go around the wall or say, "I can't take this job." — Joan Tewkesbury