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I began ear training when I was about six months old. My mother was a concert pianist, and she started all of her children with music before they were a year old. Then she began to see that I had a musical gift...

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
Children
Ears
Years
Gift
Training
Pianist
Months
Concert
Started
Concerts
Year
Began
Mother
Six
Music
Musical

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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In the end all collaborations are love stories.
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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There really is nothing I ever had access to that I didn't appreciate.
Twyla Tharp
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The disasteris not the money, although the money will be missed. The disaster is the disrespect--this belief that the arts are dispensable, that they're not critical to a culture's existence.
Twyla Tharp
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I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.
Twyla Tharp
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I've always had to keep the walls in place, and the only way to do that is to keep yourself constantly occupied... From the time I was 8 years old, until I went to college, I worked... There was no social life.
Twyla Tharp
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A young person has to start making decisions for themselves at a much earlier age than an overbearing parent allows one.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is an act of defiance.
Twyla Tharp
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Men and women are very different athletes, and frankly, I didn't want to deal with the male potential.
Twyla Tharp
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Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity. Self-reliance is a happy by-product.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
Twyla Tharp
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When I'm in the studio, when I'm warm, when I'm what people call improvising, I feel a very special connection. I feel the most right. I don't want to become too mystic about this, but things feel as though they're in the best order at that particular moment.
Twyla Tharp
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In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.
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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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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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.
Twyla Tharp
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Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill.
Twyla Tharp
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If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance.
Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale it's for engineers trying to solve a problem it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.
Twyla Tharp