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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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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Thinking
Conformity
Boxes
Start
Think

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.
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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The notion of the hero as outsider, as alien, is forget it, over, done with. It's not about being against society anymore. It's about standing there, holding something up. It's not pulling away.
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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I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.
Twyla Tharp
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With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.
Twyla Tharp
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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
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I often say that in making dances I can make a world where I think things are done morally, done democratically, done honestly.
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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This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid.
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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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
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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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Creativity is an act of defiance.
Twyla Tharp
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Well, Mozart is extraordinary not only in that he became virtuoso along the lines of his father, but that he had that compositional gift, that melodic gift. By the time he was four, he was doing piano concertos with harmony in the background.
Twyla Tharp
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I was valedictorian. Did I enjoy going to school? I hated it. It wasn't a choice on my part, it was expected.
Twyla Tharp
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I started formal piano training when I was 4. From there I had little violas, and I had dancing lessons of every sort and description, and painting lessons. I had German. And shorthand.
Twyla Tharp
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You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.
Twyla Tharp
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Whether or not God has kissed your brow, you still have to work. Without learning and preparation, you won't know how to harness the power of that kiss.
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