Quote

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.

Martha Graham

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Following
Follow
Start
Idea
Makes
Choreography
Ends
Hits
Ideas
Pattern
Something
Patterns

More quotes by Martha Graham

Image
You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice.
Martha Graham
Image
It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
Martha Graham
Image
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
Martha Graham
Image
I believe that we learn by practice.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
Martha Graham
Image
I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
Some of you are doomed to be artists.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion.
Martha Graham
Image
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
Image
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
Image
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
Martha Graham
Image
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
Martha Graham
Image
I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can't stop.
Martha Graham
Image
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