March 2012
61 posts
February 2012
61 posts
“One is born to be a dancer. No teacher can work miracles, nor will years of training make a good dancer of an untalented pupil. One may be able to acquire a certain technical facility, but no one can ever ‘acquire an exceptional talent.’ I have never prided myself on having an unusually gifted pupil. A Pavlova is no one’s pupil but God’s.”
—George Balanchine
“Dancing should look easy; like an optical illusion. It should seem effortless. When you do a difficult variation, the audience is aware that it is demanding and that you have the power and strength to do it. But in the end, when you take your bow, you should look as if you were saying, ‘Oh, it was nothing. I could do it again.’”
—Bruce Marks
“I do everything I know how in a dance.”
—Twyla Tharp
“Ballet technique is arbitrary and very difficult. It never becomes easy—it becomes possible. The effort involved in making a dancer’s body is so long and relentless, in many instances painful, the effort to maintain the technique so grueling that unless a certain satisfaction is derived from the disciplining and the punishing, the pace could not be maintained.”
—Agnes de Mille
“There are three steps you have to complete to become a professional dancer: learn to dance, learn to perform, and learn how to cope with injuries.”
—David Gere
“The simple pleasure of moving and living through one’s body is what I think matters most here. And the pleasure of dancing with someone in a spontaneous, unplanned way, free to create without disturbing one’s partner. It’s an extremely inspiring form of dance.”
—Steve Paxton
“Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn’t stop at the end of your fingers, because you’re dancing bigger than that; you’re dancing spirit.”
—Judith Jamison
“I believe that dance communicates man’s deepest, highest and most truly spiritual thoughts and emotions far better than words, spoken or written.”
—Ted Shawn
“By the end of it, you never know how it’s going to turn out. Hopefully if I pick the right songs and put the right melodies on it and all the collaboration works out. it’s a win-win situation.”
—Paul Taylor
“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.”
—Agnes de Mille (via meredithcollegedance)
“I don’t remember not dancing. When I realized I was alive and these were my parents, and I could walk and talk, I could dance.”
—Gregory Hines
“Part of the joy of dancing is conversation. Trouble is, some men can’t talk and dance at the same time.”
—Ginger Rogers
