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The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

Martha Graham

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.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Call Imagination Magic Movement Myself Space
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
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

Excuse Man Oneself Reason Willing
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 GRAHAM

Believe Direction Motivational Open Willing Work Yourself
What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Dedication Greatness Inspirational Passion
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

Art Dance Essential Exception Live Memories Movement Photograph
Some of you are doomed to be artists.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Artist Deep One Liner
The unique must be fulfilled.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Fulfillment One Liner Unique
Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Care Dance Greatness Inspirational Passion
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
A dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won’t settle for anything less.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Listening Movement Myself Necessary Pay Terrible
Dance is the landscape of man’s soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Dance Man Soul
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
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
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
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

Dance End Ideas Myself Pattern Start

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

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The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.

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