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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

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Great
Obligation
Something
Instinct
Way
Creativity
Behinds
Courage
Flimsy
Behind
Base
Passion
List
Desire
Lists

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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The more you know, the better you can imagine.
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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.
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Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won.
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One clear difference between art and commercial work is that commercial work is exploitive: the work may be high quality but the intention is to sell product or tickets. Art exists with or without ticket sales.
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Once you accept the power of spine in the creative act, you will become much more efficient in your creativity. You will still get lost on occasion, but having a spine will anchor you.
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Every work of art needs a spine – an underlying theme, a motive for coming into existence. It doesn't have to be apparent to the audience. But you need it at the start of the creative process to guide you and keep you going.
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I always find that the best collaborations are when you work with people that know what they're doing, and you leave them alone to do it.
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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.
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when the time came I would do battle with my mother for the right to sit at the center of my own life.
Twyla Tharp
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I've always found it necessity to strip away everything but the most fundamental ways to work - the rest is style.
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Men and women are very different athletes, and frankly, I didn't want to deal with the male potential.
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I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.
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That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
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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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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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Creativity is an act of defiance.
Twyla Tharp
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By making the start of the sequence automatic, they replace doubt and fear with comfort and routine.
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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Creativity requires quite a lot of faith - not just in yourself but also in the knowledge that you have the right to proceed, even when you may not know exactly what you're doing.
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