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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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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Improvising
Impulse
Action
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More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Creativity is an act of defiance.
Twyla Tharp
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I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
Twyla Tharp
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With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.
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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.
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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.
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There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything.
Twyla Tharp
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Whether it's a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory, the routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.
Twyla Tharp
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I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.
Twyla Tharp
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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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Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art.
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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Art is an investigation.
Twyla Tharp
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In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it's simply because I wasn't that committed to geometry.
Twyla Tharp
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I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.
Twyla Tharp
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The great ones never take fundamentals for granted.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That's it in a nutshell ... In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
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 do believe that when dancing is right, the movement possesses a logic common to us all.
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.
Twyla Tharp