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The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.

Martha Graham

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Greatness Inspirational Passion Technique
Censorship is the height of vanity.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Censor One Liner
You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels – a leaf feels, a storm feels – what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it’s a cultivated speech.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Cultivate Feeling Right Storm Technique Yourself
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Joy Pain Song
If you feel depressed you shouldn’t go out on the street because it will show on your face and you’ll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Communication Depression Face Feeling Misery Sick
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Hide Language
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Adversity Fire Gold Man Test
What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Greatness Inspirational Passion
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Connection Discover Earth Heaven Law Lying Movement
Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Meaning Movement Passion Technique
Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Eternity Forever Man Soul
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Celebration Dance Growth Hands Mirror Thinking Time Way Yourself
The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Exception Freedom Secret
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
What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Aware Light Myself Sun
Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for — liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Discipline Freedom Liberty Technique
I don’t think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Art Hope Myself Thinking Threat
My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Life Literature Movement
I get up, I fall down, all the while I am dancing.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Fall Inspirational Myself
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Desire Invitation Perfection Practice
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

Ambition Enough Fact Fulfill Lost Necessary World Yourself
The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Act Expression Thinking True
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Interest Job Myself
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Alive Feeling Intense Myself People
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Children Darkness Time
Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance God Message
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

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.

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The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.

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