Twyla Quotes & Sayings

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

Every dance I make is a dive into this well of ancient memory. — Twyla Tharp

Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound. — Twyla Tharp

I do at least 75 push-ups a day. — Twyla Tharp

I think Tolstoy had an unbelievably complicated relationship with women. — Twyla Tharp

But obligation, I eventually saw, is not the same as commitment, and it's certainly not an acceptable reason to stick with something that isn't working — Twyla Tharp

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. — Twyla Tharp

My favorite audience is everybody. I worked in a drive-in theater from the time I was 8 years old until I went to college, and I'm accustomed to everybody can buy a ticket and everybody should be taken into account. — Twyla Tharp

Reading is your first line of defense against an empty head. — Twyla Tharp

I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action. — Twyla Tharp

Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. — Twyla Tharp

There are as many forms of memory as there are ways of perceiving, and every one of them is worth mining for inspiration. — Twyla Tharp

My greatest fear in working is always the end. Lately I have taken to tricking myself into finishing by leaving a hole in the middle somewhere, then stitching the two pieces together - the Union Pacific approach. — Twyla Tharp

Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut. — Twyla Tharp

Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great. — Twyla Tharp

I've always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla. — Twyla Tharp

The last two - distractions and fears - are the dangerous ones. They're the habitual demons that invade the launch of any project. No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear; the key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you've begun. When I feel that sense of dread, I try to make it as specific as possible. — Twyla Tharp

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. — Twyla Tharp

The great ones never take fundamentals for granted. — Twyla Tharp

As people who have commitments and obligations, we try to blockade emotions and go on our course towards excellence, and that's a lie. I've definitely paid a price. Everything is an exchange. — Twyla Tharp

The formal education that I received made little sense to me. — Twyla Tharp

No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. — Twyla Tharp

That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action. — Twyla Tharp

Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas. — Twyla Tharp

Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business. — Twyla Tharp

Later in life, one of the compensations is gliding effortlessly into focus in a thing. Since it is who we are, anything that is not the focus or supportive thereof is just not us. Even outside issues, when they arise, are interesting in that they only help define the focus more clearly. — Twyla Tharp

To embrace luck, you have to enhance your tolerance for ambiguity. — Twyla Tharp

I can't emphasize this idea enough. Getting involved with your collaborator's problems almost always distracts you from your own. That can be tempting. That can be a relief. But it usually leads to disaster. — Twyla Tharp

This is the hard part. Knowing and admitting a problem are not the same as solving it. But executing a solution is also the fun part, because the solution save you and gets you moving again. — Twyla Tharp

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

I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language. — Twyla Tharp

I'm not interested in seeing dance die. It's not to my advantage. Nor is it to our culture's advantage or anybody else's. — Twyla Tharp

We want our artists to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us. — Twyla Tharp

Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that. — Twyla Tharp

You double your intensity with skill. — Twyla Tharp

I am fairly concise when I work and I work quickly because I think work is done better in a high gear than done our in a gear when everyone's exhausted. Get focused, do it! — Twyla Tharp

I don't mean this, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't really think of pop art and serious art as being that far apart. — Twyla Tharp

In those long and sleepless nights when I'm unable to shake my fears sufficiently, I borrow a biblical epigraph from Dostoyevsky's The Demons: I see my fears being cast into the bodies of wild boars and hogs, and I watch them rush to a cliff where they fall to their deaths. — Twyla Tharp

With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances. — Twyla Tharp

When I started thinking seriously about learning the rules of narrative, I thought, 'You've learned the rules of dancing from the ballet; what's the matter with learning the laws of theater from the people who know how to do it?' — Twyla Tharp

I had received my first establishment grants in response to applications filed the year before. To the pages of baffling forms I had simply attached a handwritten note saying, 'I make dances, not applications. Send the money. Love, Twyla. — Twyla Tharp

Mastery is an elusive concept. You never know when you achieve it absolutely and it may not help you to feel you've attained it. We can recognize it more readily in others than we can in ourselves. We have to discover our own definition of it. — Twyla Tharp

Failing, and learning from it, is necessary. Unil you've done it, you're missing an important piece of your creative arsenal. — Twyla Tharp

Art is an investigation. — Twyla Tharp

I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read. — Twyla Tharp

The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity. — Twyla Tharp

I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention. — Twyla Tharp

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. — Twyla Tharp

In creative endeavors luck is a skill. — Twyla Tharp

Life is about moving, it's about change. And when things stop doing that they're dead. — Twyla Tharp

I have learned over the years that you should never save for two meetings what you can accomplish in one. — Twyla Tharp

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they give unlimited resources. — Twyla Tharp

Dance is simply the refinement of human movement - walking, running, and jumping. We are all experts. There should be no art form more accessible than dance, yet no art is more mystifying in the public imagination. — Twyla Tharp

I had always seen myself as a star; I wanted to be a galaxy. — Twyla Tharp

This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age. — Twyla Tharp

I've always believed that a dance evening energizes an audience, that an audience goes out feeling chemically stronger and more optimistic. This is what I understand about dance. And this is an important thing. We need this. Our culture needs it. — Twyla Tharp

When you're in a groove, you're not spinning your wheels; you're moving forward in a straight and narrow path without pauses or hitches. You're unwavering, undeviating, and unparalleled in your purpose. A groove is the best place in the world. Because when you are in it, you have the freedom to explore, where everything you question leads you to new avenues and new routes. — Twyla Tharp

Unfortunately, I think we've probably all had the experience that if we're in a relationship where one of the partners is doing it 'my' way, that relationship is not going to survive. — Twyla Tharp

The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts. — Twyla Tharp

You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you. — Twyla Tharp

At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do. — Twyla Tharp

Remember this when you're struggling for a big idea. You're much better off scratching for a small one. — Twyla Tharp

To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving. — Twyla Tharp

It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. — Twyla Tharp

Balzac loved courtesans. They were independent women, and in the 19th century, that was a breed that was just evolving. — Twyla Tharp

Here's how I learned to improvise: I played some music in the studio and I started to move. It sounds obvious, but I wonder how many people, whatever their medium, appreciate the gift of improvisation. It's your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don't have to be good or even interesting. It's you alone, with no one watching or judging. If anything comes of it, you decide whether the world gets to see it. In essence, you are giving yourself permission to daydream during working hours. — Twyla Tharp

In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative. — Twyla Tharp

I never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me. — Twyla Tharp

Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better. — Twyla Tharp

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. — Twyla Tharp

You don't have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas. — Twyla Tharp

When dancing is right, the movement possesss a logic common to us all, an inevitability that takes it beyond the personal and egocentric and makes of it classical art. — Twyla Tharp

Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune. — Twyla Tharp

You don't get lucky without preparation, and there's no sense in being prepared if you're not open to the possibility of a glorious accident. — Twyla Tharp

Broadway has some very tight expectations as to what a show is. — Twyla Tharp

Living had little use for me other than how it could be funneled into dance. — Twyla Tharp

Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. — Twyla Tharp

Milos Forman is a great director, Jim Brooks is a wonderful writer and director. — Twyla Tharp

Counterpoint is a component that gives real energy, and it is about optimism. — Twyla Tharp

I find the aesthetics of the 20th century hopelessly barren. — Twyla Tharp

I have always felt one of the things dance should do - its business being so clearly physical - is challenge the culture's gender stereotypes. — Twyla Tharp

The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightening bold of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone. — Twyla Tharp

I realize that dancers have worked long and hard for standards. However, on occasion, I think that it's good to examine one's heart and ask why are we dancing. — Twyla Tharp

My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching. — Twyla Tharp

Never worry that rote exercises aimed at developing skills will suffocate creativity. At the same time, it's important to recognize that demonstrating great technique is not the same as being creative. — Twyla Tharp

Dance is the most fundamental of all art forms. — Twyla Tharp

In the end all collaborations are love stories. — Twyla Tharp

When Homer composed the Iliad and Odyssey, he was drawing on centuries of history and folklore handed down by oral tradition. When Nicolas Poussin painted The Rape of the Sabine Women, he was re-creating Roman history. When Marcel Proust dipped his petites madeleines into his tea, the taste and aroma set off a flood of memories and emotions from which modern literature has still not recovered. — Twyla Tharp

Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background. — Twyla Tharp

The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language. — Twyla Tharp

Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art. - TWYLA THARP — Daniel H. Pink

I'm obviously always interested in the dancer who's an athlete and vice versa. I expect dancers to be in condition like an athlete is and to challenge themselves in the same way, to the same physical degree. — Twyla Tharp

My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the best ditch digger in the world.' — Twyla Tharp

Creativity is an act of defiance. — Twyla Tharp

I began to discriminate between fear and excitement. The two, though very close, are completely different. Fear is negative excitement, choking your imagination. Real excitement produces an energy that overcomes apprehension and makes you want to close in on your goal. — Twyla Tharp

When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment. — Twyla Tharp

I always find that the best collaborations are when you work with people that know what they're doing, and you leave them alone to do it. — Twyla Tharp

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism. — Twyla Tharp

I was fortunate to love men, so I could put them on stage and make roles for them, and move through their bodies in a way that they enjoy doing. — Twyla Tharp

Nobody likes to see that which they've invested in disappear from the face of the earth before they've even died. This is not cool. We can now see what the landmarks are. — Twyla Tharp