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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
Like
Improvising
Impulse
Action

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Art is an investigation.
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You don't have a really good idea until you combine two little ideas.
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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.
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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.
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Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.
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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.
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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.
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when dancing is right, the movement possesss a logic common to us all, an inevitability that takes it beyond the personal and egocentric and makes of it classical art.
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I think of music as fuel, its spectrum of energy governed by tempi, volume, and heart.
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I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.
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You have to believe there's something at the other side. And you have to have faith in yourself. You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it.
Twyla Tharp
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Doing is better than not doing, and if you do something badly you'll learn to do it better.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity requires quite a lot of faith - not just in yourself but also in the knowledge that you have the right to proceed, even when you may not know exactly what you're doing.
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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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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Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them.
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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Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box
Twyla Tharp
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I don't think politicians should be allowed into power who are not familiar with their bodies, because that's where our bottom line is. And I know that they would make totally different decisions if they felt responsible simply for their own bodies.
Twyla Tharp
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When creativity has become your habit when you've learned to manage time, resources, expectations, and the demands of others when you understand the value and place of validation, continuity, and purity of purpose, then you're on the way to an artist's ultimate goal the achievement of mastery.
Twyla Tharp