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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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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Way
Feds
Machine
Machines
Worked
Dance

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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I've always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla.
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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when dancing is right, the movement possesss a logic common to us all, an inevitability that takes it beyond the personal and egocentric and makes of it classical art.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale it's for engineers trying to solve a problem it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.
Twyla Tharp
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I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.
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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The content and thematic materials of dance is, of itself, like boxing. You play tennis and baseball. But boxing is not a sport you play: you stand up and do it.
Twyla Tharp
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I've always had to keep the walls in place, and the only way to do that is to keep yourself constantly occupied... From the time I was 8 years old, until I went to college, I worked... There was no social life.
Twyla Tharp
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A young person has to start making decisions for themselves at a much earlier age than an overbearing parent allows one.
Twyla Tharp
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I never studied with Balanchine, but his work was very important to me.
Twyla Tharp
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You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you.
Twyla Tharp
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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
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The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.
Twyla Tharp
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I had received my first establishment grants in response to applications filed the year before. To the pages of baffling forms I had simply attached a handwritten note saying, 'I make dances, not applications. Send the money. Love, Twyla.
Twyla Tharp
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Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.
Twyla Tharp
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I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity.
Twyla Tharp
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I'm willing to be regarded as a tyrant to keep my vision intact.
Twyla Tharp
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My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching.
Twyla Tharp
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Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
Twyla Tharp
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Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.
Twyla Tharp