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You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.

Martha Graham

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man–the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Essence Expression Feeling Hope Human Myself Soul Wonderful
There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Action Block Force Quick Translation World Yourself
Dance is the landscape of man’s soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Man Soul
We are all of us, unique – each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Creativity Lost Pattern Time Unique
Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Growth Inspirational Remember Stand Wings
I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It’s permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Evitable Fear Happiness Intense Life
In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Dance Delicate Forget Miracle Strength
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Interest Job Myself
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

Audience Death Kiss Myself
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Lying Movement Reading Soul State
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

Art Dance Essential Exception Live Memories Movement Photograph
What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Greatness Inspirational Passion
A 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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Listening Movement Myself Necessary Pay Terrible
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

Business Compare Determination Direction Expression Value Yourself
The center of the stage is where I am.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Attention Myself Place Stage
What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Aware Light Myself Sun
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

Believe Direction Motivational Open Willing Work Yourself
When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it’s the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance End Ideas Myself Pattern Start
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

Death Live Ourselves Past People Time
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Body Creature Dance Instrument Yourself
The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Interest Name Oneself World
Discipline is liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Discipline Liberty One Liberty
It’s what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Fun Joy Laughter Myself
Modern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Country Dance Exception Freedom Mindset Modern Woman
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Joy Pain Song
The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Act Expression Thinking True
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

Action Energy Expression Force Life Quick Translation Unique

You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.

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You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.

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