Twyla Tharp Quotes
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I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.
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People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.'
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I had always seen myself as a star; I wanted to be a galaxy.
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When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.'
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I see dance as glue for a community.
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It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.
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I have the wherewithal to challenge myself for my entire life. That's a great gift.
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I work because I have issues and questions and feelings and thoughts that I want to have a look at. I'm not in need of, or wanting, particularly, to know what other folk are up to.
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Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.
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We don't need to illustrate music; music illustrates itself.
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What I do remember is visualization of the sound of music, seeing bodies in movement in relation to how music sounded, because my mother practiced at the keyboard a lot and I also went to her lessons. As a two year old, three year old I remember seeing things in movement.
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In terms of individuals who actually inspired me, very few of the academic people that I had access to had that power over me. Maybe it's simply because I wasn't that committed to geometry.
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A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
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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.
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Kids should be encouraged to compete.
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I find the aesthetics of the 20th century hopelessly barren.
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There is a moral dimension, for me, in anything that's any good.
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The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts.
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'Bum's Rush' is a piece about timing, and everything that's in the piece needs to be with the piece. If people are missing, or marking, or unable to use their voices, the impulses that prompt the action are lost, and its logic crumbles.
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What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.
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I have not wanted to intimidate audiences. I have not wanted my dancing to be an elitist form. That doesn't mean I haven't wanted it to be excellent.
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I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don't really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving.
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Nothing is more terrifying to me, really, than the status quo. I'll make mistakes before I keep doing something the same way.
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Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don't have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.