I believe that we learn by practice… it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one’s being, a satisfaction of spirit.
MARTHA GRAHAMModern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
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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.
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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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Age’ is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
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Some of you are doomed to be artists.
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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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I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover – the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth.
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I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
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.
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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.
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We 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.
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I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination.
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Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
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The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.
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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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What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
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My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
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The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.
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The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
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What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.
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Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.
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What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
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The body says what words cannot.
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The unique must be fulfilled.
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