Quote

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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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
Must
Behind
Dancer
Terrible
Necessity
Movement
Driving
Passion
Dance
Lying
Lies
Less
Pay
Homage
Anything
Behinds
Settle
Body
Listen
Settling

More quotes by Martha Graham

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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.
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My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
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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.
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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
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The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted.
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You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
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Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body.
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One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.
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Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
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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.
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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.
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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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You don't pick dance. Dance picks you.
Martha Graham
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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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Theater used to be a verb it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place.
Martha Graham
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There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it.
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Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
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There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep.
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.
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The body says what words cannot.
Martha Graham