Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they’re afraid that they’ll be forgotten. And in America they’re quite right. They will be.
AGNES DE MILLEEmily Dickinson provided four or more alternates for every word; Beethoven wrestled with endings to the point of exhaustion; in our day Jerome Robbins and his lack of decision are a byword in the dance profession.
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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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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I studied the way I danced- to the point of dropping.
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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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I am completely absorbed by the music and the steps I choose to respond to the music.
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Tolstoi’s scripts are almost indecipherable.
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We have the most varied and imaginative bathrooms in the world, we have kitchens with the most gimmicks, we have houses with every possible electrical gadget to save ourselves all kinds of trouble – all so that we can have leisure. Leisure, leisure, leisure!
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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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One of the good things about my having some recognition is that I can do something for the people
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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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Many other women have kicked higher, balanced longer, or turned faster. These are poor substitutes for passion.
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Dance in the body you have.
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What I could not learn was to think creatively on schedule.
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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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A good education is usually harmful to a dancer. A good calf is better than a good head.
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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 universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind.
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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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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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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 learned three important things in college-to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes.
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We can’t stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
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The creative urge is the demon that will not accept anything second rate.
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I want one word on my tombstone – dancer.
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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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This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds.
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Destiny is made known silently.
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