28 Quotes & Sayings By Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp is an American dance choreographer. She was born in South Dakota and had a difficult childhood. Her mother died when she was 11, and her father had severe alcohol problems. She lived in poverty for the first fifteen years of her life Read more

Tharp performed with the Ballet Theatre of Minneapolis, where she studied dance and choreography with George Balanchine. After graduating, she worked as a freelance choreographer for several companies around the U.S., including The Joffrey Ballet, The Martha Graham Dance Company, and the New York City Ballet. In 1983, she formed her own company, Twyla Tharp Dance Company, a year after she married fellow artist Robert Joffrey.

In 1997, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her accomplishments in contemporary dance.

Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things...
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Life is about moving, it’s about change. And when things stop doing that they’re dead. Twyla Tharp
Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature — all are...
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Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature — all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them and you’ll find out how big a prize you’ve won. Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is an act of defiance. Twyla Tharp
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In every situation, at the beginning or end of the workday, you have a choice. You can look back or you can look forward. My advice: look forward. Always think about the next day. Don't go into the studio thinking, 'Hmmm, let's see what I was doing yesterday?' It takes more energy to twist yourself around and look back that it does to face forward. Twyla Tharp
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If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge. Twyla Tharp
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Reading is your first line of defense against an empty head. Twyla Tharp
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You don’t get lucky without preparation, and there’s no sense in being prepared if you’re not open to the possibility of a glorious accident. Twyla Tharp
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Here’s how I learned to improvise: I played some music in the studio and I started to move. It sounds obvious, but I wonder how many people, whatever their medium, appreciate the gift of improvisation. It’s your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don’t have to be good or even interesting. It’s you alone, with no one watching or judging. If anything comes of it, you decide whether the world gets to see it. In essence, you are giving yourself permission to daydream during working hours. . Twyla Tharp
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When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it. Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember , it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others. Twyla Tharp
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Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp
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Without passion, all the skill in world won't lift you above your craft Twyla Tharp
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In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything. Twyla Tharp
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I think a sense of humor will help get a girl out of a dark place. Twyla Tharp
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Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways. Twyla Tharp
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Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits. Twyla Tharp
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To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving. Twyla Tharp
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This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age. Twyla Tharp
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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.' Twyla Tharp
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I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated. Twyla Tharp
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I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody. Twyla Tharp
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Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism. Twyla Tharp
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What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity. Twyla Tharp
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Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound. Twyla Tharp
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There's the tradition of the 19th-century ballets, and the 20th century has had a difficult time with that tradition. And it's had a difficult time with many components of the Romantic imagination because of modernism. Twyla Tharp
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Everyone has a talent. It's simply a question of good discipline, of the good fortune to have an education that meshes with that talent, and a lot of luck. Twyla Tharp
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'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people. Twyla Tharp