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I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Privileged
Teaching
Study
Year
Lasts
Last
Able
Martha
Years
Graham

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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The more you know, the better you can imagine.
Twyla Tharp
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I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.
Twyla Tharp
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I write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.
Twyla Tharp
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I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.
Twyla Tharp
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Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.
Twyla Tharp
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There are as many forms of memory as there are ways of perceiving, and every one of them is worth mining for inspiration.
Twyla Tharp
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I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night.
Twyla Tharp
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Later in life, one of the compensations is gliding effortlessly into focus in a thing. Since it is who we are, anything that is not the focus or supportive thereof is just not us. Even outside issues, when they arise, are interesting in that they only help define the focus more clearly.
Twyla Tharp
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Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
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To make real change, you have to be well anchored - not only in the belief that it can be done, but also in some pretty real ways about who you are and what you can do.
Twyla Tharp
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What I do remember is visualization of the sound of music, seeing bodies in movement in relation to how music sounded, because my mother practiced at the keyboard a lot and I also went to her lessons. As a two year old, three year old I remember seeing things in movement.
Twyla Tharp
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That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
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Concentrate: you can't have it all.
Twyla Tharp
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Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.
Twyla Tharp
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I do believe that when dancing is right, the movement possesses a logic common to us all.
Twyla Tharp
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If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge.
Twyla Tharp
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The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.
Twyla Tharp
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My greatest fear in working is always the end. Lately I have taken to tricking myself into finishing by leaving a hole in the middle somewhere, then stitching the two pieces together - the Union Pacific approach.
Twyla Tharp
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I’m much stronger than most women. Consequently, when I work with men, or when I’m partnered by men... We can actually go into kinds of movement that haven’t been available before, simply because I’ve strengthened myself as a woman, not because I’ve weakened him.
Twyla Tharp
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Mastery is an elusive concept. You never know when you achieve it absolutely and it may not help you to feel you've attained it. We can recognize it more readily in others than we can in ourselves. We have to discover our own definition of it.
Twyla Tharp