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The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.

Martha Graham

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Martha Graham
Age: 96 †
Born: 1894
Born: May 11
Died: 1991
Died: April 1
Artist
Ballet Dancer
Ballet Master
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Dancer
Music Pedagogue
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Martha Grehem
Dance
Tree
Respect
Life
Spine

More quotes by Martha Graham

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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
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The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.
Martha Graham
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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
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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
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What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
Martha Graham
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Misery is a communicable disease.
Martha Graham
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I believe that we learn by practice... it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit.
Martha Graham
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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
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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
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I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.
Martha Graham
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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
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You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
Martha Graham
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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
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Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
Martha Graham
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...Although, as the Latin verb to educate, educate, indicates, it is not a question of putting something in but drawing it out, if it is there to begin with...I want all of my students and all of my dancers to be aware of the poignancy of life at that moment. I would like to feel that I had, in some way, given them the gift of themselves.
Martha Graham
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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
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You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being.
Martha Graham
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It is difficult to see the great dance effects as they happen, to see them accurately, catch them fast in memory. It is even more difficult to verbalize them for critical discussion. The particular essence of a performance, its human sweep of articulate rhythm in space and in time has no specific terminology to describe it by.
Martha Graham
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I believe that we learn by practice.
Martha Graham
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You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening - it isn't - it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder.
Martha Graham