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I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission, and that's what I set out to do.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Choreographers
Mission
Missions
Greatness
Greatest
Become
Time
Choreographer

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Failing, and learning from it, is necessary. Unil you've done it, you're missing an important piece of your creative arsenal.
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
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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'm willing to be regarded as a tyrant to keep my vision intact.
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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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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Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
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The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.
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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To make real change, you have to be well anchored - not only in the belief that it can be done, but also in some pretty real ways about who you are and what you can do.
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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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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Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business.
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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That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
Twyla Tharp
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I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty.
Twyla Tharp
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I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about.
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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In the end all collaborations are love stories.
Twyla Tharp
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In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything.
Twyla Tharp