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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.

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

More quotes by Martha Graham

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You don't pick dance. Dance picks you.
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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.
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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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Dance is the landscape of man's soul.
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Some of you are doomed to be artists.
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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.
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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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Theater used to be a verb it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place.
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The spine is the tree of life. Respect it.
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My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
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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.
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Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
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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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You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening - it isn't - it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder.
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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.
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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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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It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance.
Martha Graham
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I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it.
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