Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
MARTHA GRAHAMA dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won’t settle for anything less.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
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 -
The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
The main thing, of course, always, is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled then something has been lost. Ambition is not enough; necessity is everything.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Censorship is the height of vanity.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
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 -
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I’d rather an audience like me than dislike me, but I’d rather they disliked me than be apathetic, because that is the kiss of death.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
The past is not dead; it is not even past. People live on inner time; the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Discipline is liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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 GRAHAM -
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM