Dance Choreographer Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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