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 GRAHAMYou 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.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
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It’s what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Modern dance isn’t anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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 -
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 -
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dance is the landscape of man’s soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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 -
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
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 -
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I’d rather have them against me than indifferent.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for — liberation.
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