The body says what words cannot.
Martha GrahamRead
If I can't dance, I don't care if my dances are ever done again!
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of passion and self-expression over external validation.
Martha Graham, a pioneering dancer and choreographer, highlights the idea that the act of dancing and the joy it brings is more important than the outcome or the recognition of one's dance. It suggests that true fulfillment comes from engaging in what one loves, rather than seeking approval or accolades from others.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing one's passion, I might quote Martha Graham to inspire the audience.
The body says what words cannot.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
I think of myself as a jungle musician because of my lack of formal training.
This award is meaningful because it comes from my fellow dealers in celluloid.
A picture is nothing but a bridge between the soul of the artist and that of the spectator.
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
In those days, a gay man was made to feel nothing but shame about his feelings and his sexuality. I wanted my drawings to counteract that, to show gay men being happy and positive about who they were. Oh, I didn't sit down to think this all out carefully. But I knew - right from the start - that my men were going to be proud and happy men!
The maker of kitsch does not create inferior art, he is not an incompetent or a bungler, he cannot be evaluated by aesthetic standards; rather, he is ethically depraved, a criminal willing radical evil. And since it is radical evil that is manifest here, evil per se, forming the absolute negative pole of every value-system, kitsch will always be evil, not just kitsch in art, but kitsch in every value-system that is not an imitation system.
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