Quote

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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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Materials
Dance
Stand
Thematic
Sports
Boxing
Play
Tennis
Like
Sport
Content
Baseball

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is an act of defiance.
Twyla Tharp
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Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help him out, you are in effect making him lucky. This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.
Twyla Tharp
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Concentrate: you can't have it all.
Twyla Tharp
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The more you fail in private, the less you will fail in public.
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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But obligation, I eventually saw, is not the same as commitment, and it's certainly not an acceptable reason to stick with something that isn't working
Twyla Tharp
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I do believe that when dancing is right, the movement possesses a logic common to us all.
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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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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Confidence is a trait that has to be earned honestly and refreshed constantly you have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them. . . The one thing that creative souls around the world have in common is that they all have to practice to maintain their skills. Art is a vast democracy of habit.
Twyla Tharp
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I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place.
Twyla Tharp
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I can't emphasize this idea enough. Getting involved with your collaborator's problems almost always distracts you from your own. That can be tempting. That can be a relief. But it usually leads to disaster.
Twyla Tharp
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I write. I have read a great deal. I enjoy books. I like the wit of languages. Even French I like. I like to be able to think in different modes. I like to be able to use the language a great deal and carry on rehearsals in French.
Twyla Tharp
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There are so few people who can really take hold of art and sort of eat and chew it up. Somehow it's got to be held special, sacred in a corner, and if you don't do the same thing with it, if you're not equally reverential, serious, and pompous about it, well, then you're not a great artist. Who needs that?
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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Dancing is like bank robbery, it takes split-second timing.
Twyla Tharp
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Limits are a secret blessing, and bounty can be a curse.
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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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