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Creativity is an act of defiance.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Art
Writing
Defiance
Creativity

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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I have always felt one of the things dance should do - its business being so clearly physical - is challenge the culture's gender stereotypes.
Twyla Tharp
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In the end all collaborations are love stories.
Twyla Tharp
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More often than not I've found, a rut is a consequence of sticking to tried and tested methods that don't take into account how you or the world has changed.
Twyla Tharp
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In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
Twyla Tharp
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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
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Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.
Twyla Tharp
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I think of music as fuel, its spectrum of energy governed by tempi, volume, and heart.
Twyla Tharp
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The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.
Twyla Tharp
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We're a machine and we have to be worked in the same way we have to be fed.
Twyla Tharp
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The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect--this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they're not critical to a culture's existence.
Twyla Tharp
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The way I enjoyed spending time most was dancing. That's from the time I was a very small child, When I was 4 or 5 years old, I remember already having a regime. It was the way I always identified myself.
Twyla Tharp
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The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.
Twyla Tharp
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I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.
Twyla Tharp
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While most people in the arts think they have to be constantly looking forward to be edgy and creative....the real secret of creativity is to go back and remember.
Twyla Tharp
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I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission, and that's what I set out to do.
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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Never worry that rote exercises aimed at developing skills will suffocate creativity. At the same time, it's important to recognize that demonstrating great technique is not the same as being creative.
Twyla Tharp
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Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.
Twyla Tharp
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Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.
Twyla Tharp
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I never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me.
Twyla Tharp