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.
AGNES DE MILLEFriends die one by one, but so, thank God, do enemies.
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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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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A good education is usually harmful to a dancer. A good calf is better than a good head.
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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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What they wanted was something newly experienced, and therefore unknown and hard to attain.
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The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.
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Ballet technique never becomes easy, it becomes possible
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What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.
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In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door.
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Dancers aren’t made of their technique, but their passion.
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To make up a dance, I still need, as I needed then, a pot of tea, walking space, privacy and an idea.
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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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We can’t stand silence, because silence includes thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
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No white man uses his feet the way an Indian does. He talks to the earth.
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Dancers don’t get invited to visit people. It is assumed a boy dancer will run off with the spoons and a girl with the head of the house.
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The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
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The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
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The practice mirror is to be used for the correction of faults, not for a love affair, and the figure you watch should not become your dearest friend.
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Living is a form of not being sure, not know what next or how… The artists never entirely knows.
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Who am I?, the artist asks. And he devotes his whole life to finding out.
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The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind.
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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.
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I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.
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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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I think ought to have more and correct some of the matters fate fails to take care of.
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Modern dancers give a sinister portent about our times. The dancers don’t even look at one another.
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Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
AGNES DE MILLE