The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.
MARTHA GRAHAMWe look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
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Some of you are doomed to be artists.
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It’s what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
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Misery is a communicable disease.
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Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.
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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.
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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.
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Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
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Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
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The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
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What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.
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No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
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In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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 -
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 -
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
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The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
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All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Discipline is liberation.
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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.
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I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
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I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen.
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Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
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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 -
Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
MARTHA GRAHAM