Twyla Tharp Quotes
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Let me put it this way: I would like to direct a successful film. An unsuccessful film I would not like to direct. Films are very difficult.
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I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.
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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.
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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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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.
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Who a dancer is physically feeds into character for me. Always has.
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When I started thinking seriously about learning the rules of narrative, I thought, 'You've learned the rules of dancing from the ballet; what's the matter with learning the laws of theater from the people who know how to do it?'
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I do not watch television, never have.
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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.
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I often say that in making dances I can make a world where I think things are done morally, done democratically, done honestly.
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I'm not satisfied sitting in just the world of abstract work.
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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.'
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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.
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The ballet needs to tell its own story in such a way it can be received without having to be translated into language.
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When I started making dances in the '60s, narrative dance was sort of off the radar screen. What was important at the time in the avant-garde was minimalism.
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I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time.
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What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.
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I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.
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Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.
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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.
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Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere.
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Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that.
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Any comic is a tragic soul. Comedy is one of the things that allows one to survive. Particularly if one has been in the process of separating off the emotions, it's one place you can process them.
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I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.