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You don't pick dance. Dance picks you.

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
Picks
Dance
Pick

More quotes by 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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Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man.
Martha Graham
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It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
Martha Graham
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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.
Martha Graham
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All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital, and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
Martha Graham
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The body says what words cannot.
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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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
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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.
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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My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
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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The center of the stage is where I am.
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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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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Dancers are the messengers of the gods.
Martha Graham
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I believe that we learn by practice.
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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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
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Dance is the landscape of man's soul.
Martha Graham