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.
Interpretation
Dance enriches the audience's emotional and physical state, fostering optimism and cultural vitality.
Twyla Tharp emphasizes the transformative power of dance, asserting that a dance performance invigorates both body and spirit, leaving the audience feeling uplifted and more optimistic. She argues that this experience is essential not only for individual well-being but also for the health of our culture, highlighting the vital role of dance in societal enrichment.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of arts in schools, this quote can inspire educators.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
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.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
Where there is a woman there is magic. If there is a moon falling from her mouth, she is a woman who knows her magic, who can share or not share her powers. A woman with a moon falling from her mouth, roses between her legs and tiaras of Spanish moss, this woman is a consort of the spirits.
Music has been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world. Through it - my music, I know I will live forever.
This world is but a canvas to our imagination.
Acting is all about relating to the people on stage with you, even in plays that break the fourth wall. Clowning, for the most part, is the opposite. If somebody in the audience sneezes, I can count on it: I don't even have to look at Shiner; he'll have his handkerchief out. It's all about all of us in the room together.
Color is sensibility in material form, matter in its primordial state.
The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!
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