Dancing Quotes - Page 37

• The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Thinking, Mirrors

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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• Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Sleep, Frustration

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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• Master technique and then forget about it and be natural.

  Anna Pavlova

  Dance, Ballet, Technique

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• Fine dancing, I believe like virtue, must be its own reward. Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very different.

  Jane Austen

  Dance, Believe, Thinking

  Jane Austen (2007). “The Complete Novels of Jane Austen”, p.929, Wordsworth Editions

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• The mirror is not you. The mirror is you looking at yourself.

  George Balanchine

  Dance, Mirrors, Just Dance

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• There are likewise three kinds of dancers: first, those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience. And finally, there are those who convert the body into a luminous fluidity, surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul.

  Isadora Duncan

  Dance, Inspiration, Feelings

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• Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Passion, Movement

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood memory”, Doubleday

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• Dance for yourself. If someone else understands, good. If not, no matter. Go right on doing what interests you, and do it until it stops interesting you.

  Louis Horst

  Dance, Interesting, Matter

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• Dance is an art that imprints on the soul. It is with you every moment, it expresses itself in everything you do.

  Shirley MacLaine

  Dance, Art, Soul

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• Then come the lights shining on you from above. You are a performer. You forget all you learned, the process of technique, the fear, the pain, you even forget who you are you become one with the music, the lights, indeed one with the dance.

  Shirley MacLaine

  Dance, Pain, Light

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• The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.

  Herman Melville

  Girl, Dance, Eye

  Herman Melville (1860). “Typee : a peep at polynesian life, during a four months residence in a valley of the Marquesas”, p.179

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• The dance is the mother of all languages.

  Robin G. Collingwood

  Dance, Mother, Language

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• When you are dancing with your partner, for that two and a half minutes, you are in love with each other. You're
  corresponding with each other by the moves that you make. It's a love affair, between you and your partner and
  the music. You feel the music, you feel your partner, she feels you and she feels the music. So there the three of
  you are together. You've got a triangle, you know. Which one do you love best?

  Frankie Manning

  Dance, Moving, Love Is

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• Man must speak, then sing, then dance. The speaking is the brain, the thinking man. The singing is the emotion. The dancing is the Dionysian ecstasy which carries away all.

  Isadora Duncan

  Dance, Men, Thinking

  Isadora Duncan (2013). “My Life (Revised and Updated)”, p.131, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer's art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories--when his dancing days are over.

  Martha Graham

  Dance, Art, Memories

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• Basic dance--and I should qualify the word basic--is primarily concerned with motion. So immediately you will say but the basketball player is concerned with motion. That is so--but he is not concerned with it primarily. His action is a means towards an end beyond motion. In basic dance the motion is its own end--that is, it is concerned with nothing beyond itself.

  Alwin Nikolais

  Basketball, Dance, Mean

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• The choreographer cannot deliberately make a ballet to appeal to an audience, he has to start from personal inspirations. He has to trust the ballet, to let it stand on its own strengths or fall on its weaknesses. If it reaches the audience, then he is lucky that round!

  Gerald Arpino

  Inspirational, Dance, Fall

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• To live and to laugh require a reason. But dancing is so close to one's guts that it has no reason and yet it needs none; it's physical, and as a source of good cheer it is end endless.

  Toni Bentley

  Dance, Cheer, Laughing

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• Without music, life would be a mistake... I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Music, Dance, God

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• Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?

  Lewis Carroll

  Dance, Ballet, Alice Adventures In Wonderland

  Alice's Adventures inWonderland ch. 10 (1865)

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• If I could explain, I wouldn't need to dance!

  Isadora Duncan

  Dance, Needs, If I Could

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• I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper
  cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me.
  I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget;
  we've only got so many tricks.
  no one lives forever.

  Danny Elfman

  Death, Clever, Cutting

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• If God creates a world of particles and waves, dancing in obedience to mathematical and physical laws, who are we to say that he cannot make use of those laws to cover the surface of a small planet with living creatures?

  Martin Gardner

  Law, Religion, Use

  Martin Gardner (2005). “The New Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Asymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings”, p.136, Courier Corporation

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• Dancers work and live from the inside. They drive themselves constantly producing a glow that lights not only themselves but audience after audience.

  Murray Louis

  Dance, Light, Ballet

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• The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. There are movements which impinge upon the nerves with a strength that is incomparable, for movement has power to stir the senses and emotions, unique in itself. This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art.

  Doris Humphrey

  Dance, Art, Believe

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