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

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

Affirmation Aware Dance Function Live Mystery Wonderful
Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Dance Hide Language
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
The unique must be fulfilled.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Fulfillment One Liner Unique
Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests. It’s a miracle, and the dance is a celebration of that miracle.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body Celebration Dance Magic Miracle Small Yourself
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
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
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

Dance Evitable Fear Happiness Intense Life
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
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Lying Movement Reading Soul State
The body says what words cannot.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Body One Liner Word
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
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

Creativity Lost Pattern Time Unique
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can’t stop.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Believe Day Future Myself Past Time
There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Action Block Force Quick Translation World Yourself
Nothing is more revealing than movement.
MARTHA GRAHAM

Exposure Movement Reveal

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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