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What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.

Martha Graham

No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Himself Time
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

Bone Dance Day Hard People Start Work Yourself
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

Business Compare Determination Direction Expression Value Yourself
No animal ever has an ugly body until it is domesticated. It is the same with the human body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Animal Body Human See Ugly
Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Greatness Inspirational Passion Technique
It’s what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Fun Joy Laughter Myself
The body is a sacred garment. It’s your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Life Respect Sacred Treat Yourself
Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Desire Invitation Perfection Practice
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Exposure Movement Reveal
You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Inspirational Style Yourself
The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Act Expression Thinking True
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
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Alive Artist Divine Satisfaction Strange Time
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

Age Dance Live Magic Performance Reason
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

Choice Dance Life People Yourself
Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Inspirational Ourselves Perspective Start Wings
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
In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Dance Delicate Forget Miracle Strength
We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Area Athlete Dance God Learning Live Oneself Practice
Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Boredom Happiness Repeat
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Adversity Fire Gold Man Test
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

Audience Death Kiss Myself
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

Believe Discipline God Principle Technique Thinking Word
Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Growth Inspirational Remember Stand Wings
It’s not my job to look beautiful. It’s my job to look interesting.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Beautiful Interest Job Myself
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
Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Heart Measurement

What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.

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What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness.

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