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I understand things that are American, for better or worse.

Twyla Tharp

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Twyla Tharp
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: July 1
Ballet Dancer
Choreographer
Dancer
Writer
Portland
Indiana
American
Understand
Better
Things
Worse

More quotes by Twyla Tharp

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Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.
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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I had always seen myself as a star I wanted to be a galaxy.
Twyla Tharp
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Whom the gods wish to destroy, they give unlimited resources.
Twyla Tharp
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I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity.
Twyla Tharp
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A dancer's life is all about repetition.
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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I always find that the best collaborations are when you work with people that know what they're doing, and you leave them alone to do it.
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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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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It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer.
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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The more you fail in private, the less you will fail in public.
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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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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I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time.
Twyla Tharp
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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.
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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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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Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead.
Twyla Tharp