Dancers aren’t made of their technique, but their passion.
AGNES DE MILLEWe can’t stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
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Then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned down… and kissed him. And the world cracked open.
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But all of these knew very well what they did not want, and what they did not want was the current coin, the well-worn usage.
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There is something fearfully strengthening about cutting free even if the ties bandage the heart itself.
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I had had to learn the difference between the bearable fatigue and the unbearable, the fatigue of fear. The first can be cured by a night’s sleep; the second kills.
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But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises.
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The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
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Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little.
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Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat. It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything.
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The choreographic process is exhausting. It happens on one’s feet after hours of work, and the energy required is roughly the equivalent of writing a novel and winning a tennis match simultaneously.
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Dancing is such a despised and dishonored trade that if you tell a doctor or a laywer you do choreography he’ll look at you as if you were a hummingbird.
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I am completely absorbed by the music and the steps I choose to respond to the music.
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We can’t stand silence, because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
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Dance constitutes a true recapturing of… freedom and childish play.
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So that we don’t go mad in the leisure, we have color TV. So that there will never, never, be a moment of silence, we have radio and Muzak.
AGNES DE MILLE