Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for — liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAMI 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.
More Martha Graham Quotes
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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 -
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 -
Discipline is liberation.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dancers have more bones than most people and on the days when you work hard you are sure that you have somehow accumulated more bones than you started with.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies – bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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 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 -
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 -
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 -
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Misery is a communicable disease.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
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.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
MARTHA GRAHAM -
Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.
MARTHA GRAHAM