Quote

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

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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
Left
Dancing
Moments
Dance
Art
Except
Nothing
Lived
Ballet
Memories
Dancer
Days
Essentially
Moment
Pictures
Living
Although

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Fire is the test of gold adversity, of strong men.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
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'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
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Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
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The past is not dead it is not even past. People live on inner time the moment in which a decisive thought or feeling takes place can be at any time. Timeless feelings are common to all of us.
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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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Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
Martha Graham
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Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.
Martha Graham
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The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
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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The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing.
Martha Graham
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The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.
Martha Graham
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I never thought of myself as being a genius. I don't know what genius is. I think a far better expression is a retriever, a lovely strong golden retriever that brings things back from the past, or retrieves things from our common blood memory
Martha Graham
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First we have to believe, and then we believe.
Martha Graham
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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
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Misery is a communicable disease.
Martha Graham