Quotes & Sayings About Dancers Bodies

Poetry began in the matriarchal age, and derives its magic from the moon, not from the sun. No poet can hope to understand the nature of poetry unless he has had a vision of the Naked King crucified to the lopped oak, and watched the dancers, red-eyed from the acrid smoke of the sacrificial fires, stamping out the measure of the dance, their bodies bent uncouthly forward, with a monotonous chant of "Kill! kill! kill!" and "Blood! blood! blood! — Robert Graves

Ballet's image of perfection is fashioned amid a milieu of wracked bodies, fevered imaginations, Balkan intrigue and sulfurous hatreds where anything is likely, and dancers know it. — Shana Alexander

We must recognize that our frustrations are largely due to the fact that we have not learned how to "dance" to a large part of the emotional spectrum. Being emotionally versatile is like being a good dancer. Just as dancers must challenge themselves to master new moves with their bodies, we must challenge ourselves to learn new forms of psychological choreography. — T.K. Coleman

All dancers are, by and large, a photographer's dream. They communicate with their bodies and they are trained to be completely responsive to a collaborative situation. — Annie Leibovitz

As the sun began to rise, the man reached out to the woman, and they clasped hands. He cradled her, and languidly they lifted themselves up to their feet, their bodies brushing, their eyes lost in each other's. Sensuously, deliberately, they danced, moving as though they were one, their body language smooth as their limbs carefully unfolded. They twirled and rocked, intertwined and separated, nearly leaning onto one another but barely touching, their movements sometimes tender, sometimes almost violent ... Moments passed while the dancers held tight to each other, as though their bodies were melting together. The expression on their features as they lifted their faces to the sky was one of unimaginable joy. — Hannah Fielding

My investigation of movement has led me to choices which vary from traditional norms. My dancers and I see the rehearsal as a laboratory for testing scientific principles on the body. We invent action ideas which we think are archetypal, noticeable, understandable. The outcome is a mixture of slam dancing, exquisite and amazing human flight and a wild action sport which captures kids, older people and the general public's hearts and minds and bodies. — Elizabeth Streb

Accounts from Europe indicate that the danse macabre took another form, inspired by the Black Death, rather like our children's rhyme 'Ring o' Ring o' Roses', which refers to the Great Plague. In 1374, a fanatical sect of dancers appeared in the Rhine, convinced that they could put an end to the epidemic by dancing for days and allowing other people to trample on their bodies. It is not recorded whether they recovered but, incredibly, they began to raise money from bystanders. By the time they reached Cologne they were 500 strong, dancing like demons, half-naked with flowers in their hair. Regarded as a menace by the authorities, these dancers macabre were threatened with excommunication. — Catharine Arnold

Society has no qualms about a masseuse who is paid for touching people, or about laborers, or professional athletes or dancers, all of whom make a living with their bodies. Why should we make an exception for sex? — Sydney Biddle Barrows

Dancers use their bodies in extraordinary ways, so we are chronically pre-arthritic, because of how we use our muscles and our bones. — Judith Jamison

Inside the terminal at Keahole, they sat waiting to board, watching husky Hawaiians load luggage onto baggage ramps. Arriving tourists smiled at their dark, muscled bodies, handsome full-featured faces, the ease with which they lifted things of bulk and weight. Departing tourists took snapshots of them.
'That's how they see us', Pono whispered. 'Porters, servants. Hula Dancers, clowns. They never see us as we are, complex, ambiguous, inspired humans.'
'Not all haole see us that way ... 'Jess argued.
Vanya stared at her. 'Yes, all Haole and every foreigner who comes here puts us in one of two categories: The malignant stereotype of vicious, drunken, do-nothing kanaka and their loose-hipped, whoring wahine. Or, the benign stereotype of the childlike, tourist-loving, bare-foot, aloha-spirit natives. — Kiana Davenport

In Degas's compositions with several dancers, their steps, postures and gestures often resemble the almost geometric, formal letters of an alphabet, whereas their bodies and heads are recalcitrant, sinuous and individual. — John Berger

They didn't speak. Words were powerless now. Like a pair of dancers who had stopped mid-step, they simply held each other quietly, giving themselves up to the flow of time. Time that encompassed both past and present, and even a portion of the future. Nothing came between their two bodies, as her warm breath brushed his neck. Tsukuru shut his eyes, letting the music wash over him as he listened to Eri's heartbeat. The beating of her heart kept time with the slap of the little boat against the pier. — Haruki Murakami

Dancers carry themselves in completely different ways to how we do in our everyday lives. They are very free with their bodies which I'm not used too. — Kristin Cavallari

I think all dancers are control freaks a bit. We just want to be in control of ourselves and our bodies. That's just what the ballet structure, I think, kind of puts inside of you. — Misty Copeland

You can't be pregnant in leotards, and this is the last chance for us to get our bodies into the shape of concert dancers and capture it with the magic of film. — Patrick Swayze

I spit upon the dancers painted by Degas. I spit upon their short bodies, their stiff stays, their toes whereupon they spin like peg-tops, above all upon that chambermaid face. They might have looked timeless, Remeses the Great, but not the chambermaid, that old maid history. I spit! I spit! I spit! — W.B.Yeats

The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary. — Agnes De Mille

The song is gone; the dance
is secret with the dancers in the earth,
the ritual useless, and the tribal story
lost in an alien tale.
Only the grass stands up
to mark the dancing-ring; the apple-gums
posture and mime a past corroboree,
murmur a broken chant.
The hunter is gone; the spear
is splintered underground; the painted bodies
a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.
The nomad feet are still.
Only the rider's heart
halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word
that fastens in the blood of the ancient curse,
the fear as old as Cain. — Judith A. Wright

Like the bodies of dancers or athletes, the minds of readers are genuinely happy and self-possessed only when cavorting around, doing their stretches and leaps and jumps to the tune of words. — Lynne Sharon Schwartz