Quote

Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that.

Twyla Tharp

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Dance
Everybody
Easy
Never
Life
Particularly

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

Image
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Twyla Tharp
Image
The great ones never take fundamentals for granted.
Twyla Tharp
Image
You only need one good reason to commit to an idea, not four hundred. But if you have four hundred reasons to say yes and one reason to say no, the answer is probably no.
Twyla Tharp
Image
We're a machine and we have to be worked in the same way we have to be fed.
Twyla Tharp
Image
That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I have learned over the years that you should never save for two meetings what you can accomplish in one.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift...
Twyla Tharp
Image
Failing, and learning from it, is necessary. Unil you've done it, you're missing an important piece of your creative arsenal.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I have a sort of tactility about music. I go into record stores and just run my fingers over it, the spines.
Twyla Tharp
Image
It's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.
Twyla Tharp
Image
In the not-for-profit world, there can be wastefulness because there's not the desperate urgency of when you're on a clock.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Concentrate: you can't have it all.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I began to discriminate between fear and excitement. The two, though very close, are completely different. Fear is negative excitement, choking your imagination. Real excitement produces an energy that overcomes apprehension and makes you want to close in on your goal.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I don't believe in rushing and saying this is done and over with. That form of rebellion doesn't make sense to me. I've always attempted to familiarize myself with the traditions, and consider that a responsibility of the artist.
Twyla Tharp
Image
In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
Twyla Tharp
Image
You have to believe there's something at the other side. And you have to have faith in yourself. You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Don’t sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people’s zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don’t insert yourself unless you’re running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak.
Twyla Tharp
Image
If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance.
Twyla Tharp
Image
There's a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other.
Twyla Tharp