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To make real change, you have to be well anchored - not only in the belief that it can be done, but also in some pretty real ways about who you are and what you can do.
Twyla Tharp -
I have the wherewithal to challenge myself for my entire life. That's a great gift.
Twyla Tharp
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Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere.
Twyla Tharp -
I do not watch television, never have.
Twyla Tharp -
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.
Twyla Tharp -
I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days.
Twyla Tharp -
What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.
Twyla Tharp -
When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.
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 -
I've always felt compelled to explore range, because, as far as I know, we're only here once. So let's see how much we can encompass.
Twyla Tharp -
My favorite audience is everybody. I worked in a drive-in theater from the time I was 8 years old until I went to college, and I'm accustomed to everybody can buy a ticket and everybody should be taken into account.
Twyla Tharp -
The rewards of dancing are very different from choreographing.
Twyla Tharp -
I've always believed that a dance evening energizes an audience, that an audience goes out feeling chemically stronger and more optimistic. This is what I understand about dance. And this is an important thing. We need this. Our culture needs it.
Twyla Tharp -
It's very difficult for me to do fund raising for my own organization if I'm working for other companies because sponsors will say, 'Well, hey, man, if she's doing a ballet for Ballet Theatre, we'll give money to Ballet Theatre.'
Twyla Tharp
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I don't judge. Judgment is not my business. Existing is my business.
Twyla Tharp -
Walt Disney was a master of the human psychology. His sense of timing, sense of speed. In a sense, those cartoons are like Rorschach tests.
Twyla Tharp -
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.
Twyla Tharp -
I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time.
Twyla Tharp -
I realize that dancers have worked long and hard for standards. However, on occasion, I think that it's good to examine one's heart and ask why are we dancing.
Twyla Tharp -
Who a dancer is physically feeds into character for me. Always has.
Twyla Tharp
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At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do.
Twyla Tharp -
I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity.
Twyla Tharp -
The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.
Twyla Tharp -
I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night.
Twyla Tharp