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I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen.

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
Dancer
Chosen
Dance
Choose

More quotes by Martha Graham

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Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
Martha Graham
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Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
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 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.
Martha Graham
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There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep.
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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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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I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can't stop.
Martha Graham
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Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation.
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.
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.
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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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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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.
Martha Graham
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You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.
Martha Graham
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Dance is the landscape of man's soul.
Martha Graham
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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
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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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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.
Martha Graham
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Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Martha Graham