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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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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
Nouns
Verbs
Nowadays
Drama
Theater
Place
Used
Noun
Verb

More quotes by Martha Graham

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Sometimes it's blood memory... not the blood your mother and father gave you... but that which stretches back two or three thousand years.
Martha Graham
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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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First we have to believe, and then we believe.
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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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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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I'm asked so often whether I believe in life after death. I do believe in the sanctity of life, the continuity of life and of energy. I know the anonymity of death has no appeal for me. It is the now that I must face and want to face.
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Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
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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.
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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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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.
Martha Graham
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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
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In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
Martha Graham
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You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.
Martha Graham
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'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
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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Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.
Martha Graham
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There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.
Martha Graham
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Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths.
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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I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent.
Martha Graham