Quotes by Twyla Tharp

About Twyla Tharp:

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966, she formed her own company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often utilizes classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The rewards of dancing are very different from choreographing.

Twyla Tharp

These days, I think we could all agree that having a just-friend is not a bad thing.

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

With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.

Twyla Tharp

'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.

Twyla Tharp

After so many years, I've learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. That's why writers, for example, like to establish routines for themselves.

Twyla Tharp

I used to say to myself, 'Well, in the old days everybody danced because they loved to dance, and there was none of this professional garbage going on about how much can you get for this or that or the other, or any of the kinds of things that insecu...

Twyla Tharp

Everything present is included in the past somewhere; nobody's present pops out of nowhere.

Twyla Tharp

Dance should not just divide people into audience and performers. Everyone should be a participant, whether going to classes or attending special events or rehearsals.

Twyla Tharp

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.

Twyla Tharp

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.

Twyla Tharp

Broadway has some very tight expectations as to what a show is.

Twyla Tharp

Critics should be looked at simply as commentators.

Twyla Tharp

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.

Twyla Tharp

Counterpoint is a component that gives real energy, and it is about optimism.

Twyla Tharp

I've read probably 25 or 30 books by Balzac, all of Tolstoy - the novels and letters - and all of Dickens. I learned my craft from these guys.

Twyla Tharp

Kids should be encouraged to compete.

Twyla Tharp

I was privileged to be able to study a year with Martha Graham, the last year she was teaching.

Twyla Tharp

In circuses, there is a lot of magic. Things become other things.

Twyla Tharp

If a thing moves, it lives.

Twyla Tharp

I do not watch television, never have.

Twyla Tharp

Author Bio

  • NameTwyla Tharp
  • DescriptionAmerican choreographer
  • BornJuly 1, 1941
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionChoreographer; Writer; Dancer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; MacArthur Fellows Program; National Medal Of Arts; Emmy Award