Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer’s art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories–when his dancing days are over.
MARTHA GRAHAMYou have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels – a leaf feels, a storm feels – what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
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I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Age’ is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
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The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies – bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.
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The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
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Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Modern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
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Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels – a leaf feels, a storm feels – what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.
MARTHA GRAHAM