Twyla Tharp Dance Quotes & Sayings

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

Dancers are allowed, indeed encouraged, to remain children forever ... — Twyla Tharp

When I started making dances in the '60s, narrative dance was sort of off the radar screen. What was important at the time in the avant-garde was minimalism. — Twyla Tharp

I used to say to myself, 'Well, in the old days everybody danced because they loved to dance, and there was none of this professional garbage going on about how much can you get for this or that or the other, or any of the kinds of things that insecurity can sometimes promote. Sometimes it's for the wrong reasons.' — Twyla Tharp

Dance is just like film in that it allows for thoughts in movement. — Twyla Tharp

I see dance as glue for a community. — Twyla Tharp

Dance should not just divide people into audience and performers. Everyone should be a participant, whether going to classes or attending special events or rehearsals. — Twyla Tharp

Dance is a tough life (and a tougher way to make a living). Choreography is even more brutal because there is no way to carry our history forward. Our creations disappear the moment we finish performing them. It's tough to preserve a legacy, create a history for yourself and others. But I put all that aside and pursued my gut instinct anyway. I became my own rebellion. Going with your head makes it arbitrary. Going with your gut means you have no choice. — Twyla Tharp

I was used to dancing, but only when someone told you what to do. So in the nightclub I was all over the place, I combined everything. Street dance, modern dance, a bit of jazz and ballet, I was Twyla Tharp, I was Alvin Ailey, I was Michael Jackson. I didn't care, I was free. — Madonna Ciccone

I always, somehow, knew that I was going to dance. — Twyla Tharp

I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don't count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty. — Twyla Tharp

I start every dance with a box. I write the project name on the box, and as the piece progresses I fill it up with every item that went into the making of the dance. — Twyla Tharp

What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity. — Twyla Tharp

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. — Twyla Tharp

You have to believe there's something at the other side. And you have to have faith in yourself. You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it. — Twyla Tharp

This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid. — Twyla Tharp

A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things. — Twyla Tharp

Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing. — Twyla Tharp

I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about. — Twyla Tharp

We're a machine and we have to be worked in the same way we have to be fed. — Twyla Tharp

I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process ... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer. — Twyla Tharp

The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it. — Twyla Tharp

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come. — Twyla Tharp

People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.' — Twyla Tharp

I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't. — Twyla Tharp

Has there ever been a dance career with more ups and downs than Twyla Tharp's? Or with more varied ambitions? Or larger ambition? — Robert Gottlieb

I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody. — Twyla Tharp

I do everything I know how in a dance. — Twyla Tharp

When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.' — Twyla Tharp

Dance is the stepchild of the arts. — Twyla Tharp