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You're only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Kidding
Craft
Crafts
Creativity

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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The first steps of a creative act are like groping in the dark: random and chaotic, feverish and fearful, a lot of busy-ness with no apparent or definable end in sight.
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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Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck.
Twyla Tharp
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Later in life, one of the compensations is gliding effortlessly into focus in a thing. Since it is who we are, anything that is not the focus or supportive thereof is just not us. Even outside issues, when they arise, are interesting in that they only help define the focus more clearly.
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
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Energy and time are finite resources conserving them is very important.
Twyla Tharp
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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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That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.
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 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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When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it.
Twyla Tharp
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Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.
Twyla Tharp
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In the end all collaborations are love stories.
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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Just when you arrive at the apex of your skills, it's time to retire. But as it turned out, I decided that since it was the thing that I felt I did best, I owed it to all that be to pursue it.
Twyla Tharp
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I'm often asked, 'Where do you get your ideas?' ...It's like asking, 'Where do you find air to breathe?' Ideas are all around you.
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
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You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you.
Twyla Tharp
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I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.
Twyla Tharp
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I do everything I know how in a dance.
Twyla Tharp