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

More quotes by 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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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 more you know, the better you can imagine.
Twyla Tharp
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I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.
Twyla Tharp
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There really is nothing I ever had access to that I didn't appreciate.
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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I am fairly concise when I work and I work quickly because I think work is done better in a high gear than done our in a gear when everyone's exhausted. Get focused, do it!
Twyla Tharp
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You don't get into the mood to create – it's discipline.
Twyla Tharp
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You don't have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas.
Twyla Tharp
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I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
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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Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.
Twyla Tharp
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Usually kids who are talented have the brashness to think they can do anything, but they don't often get the chance to see how close they can come.
Twyla Tharp
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Skill is how you close the gap between what you can see in your mind's eye and what you can produce the more skill you have, the more sophisticated and accomplished your ideas can be. With absolute skill comes absolute confidence.
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 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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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
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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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Every dance I make is a dive into this well of ancient memory.
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