Quote

I've always thought my creative life began the moment my mother called me Twyla.

Twyla Tharp

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Creative
Moment
Mother
Moments
Thought
Always
Began
Life
Creativity
Called

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

Image
When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment.
Twyla Tharp
Image
I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
Men and women are very different athletes, and frankly, I didn't want to deal with the male potential.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
I'm willing to be regarded as a tyrant to keep my vision intact.
Twyla Tharp
Image
Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
The formal education that I received made little sense to me.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
I'm not one who divides music, dance or art into various categories. Either something works, or it doesn't.
Twyla Tharp
Image
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
Image
That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
Image
dance is simply the refinement of human movement - walking, running, and jumping. We are all experts. There should be no art form more accessible than dance, yet no art is more mystifying in the public imagination.
Twyla Tharp
Image
The great ones never take fundamentals for granted.
Twyla Tharp
Image
We're a machine and we have to be worked in the same way we have to be fed.
Twyla Tharp