Then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned down… and kissed him. And the world cracked open.
AGNES DE MILLEBallet technique never becomes easy, it becomes possible
More Agnes de Mille Quotes
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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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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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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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So that we will miss nothing. Partly it’s greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
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I want one word on my tombstone – dancer.
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Tolstoi’s scripts are almost indecipherable.
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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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What they wanted was something newly experienced, and therefore unknown and hard to attain.
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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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Emily 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.
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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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No white man uses his feet the way an Indian does. He talks to the earth.
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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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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.
AGNES DE MILLE