A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet, that the two disciplines were totally separate, and if you did one, you couldn’t do the other. I’m beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the rigid separation between different forms of dance can be detrimental to creativity and expression.
Twyla Tharp expresses her belief that the artificial barriers between different dance styles, such as modern dance and ballet, are restrictive and counterproductive. She argues that these walls limit the potential for blending influences and innovations, advocating for a more integrated approach to art that allows for the exploration and fusion of various techniques and styles. By challenging the notion of exclusivity in dance, she emphasizes the importance of versatility and openness in artistic expression.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of artistic fusion, this quote can illustrate the need to break down barriers in the creative process.
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.
I am now satisfied that the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.
Poetry and prayer are very similar.
A good writer is basically a story teller, not a scholar or a redeemer of mankind.
People do not come to a Penn & Teller show to see a magic show. They just don't. They come to see weird stuff that they can see no place else, that will make them laugh and make the little hairs stand up on the backs of their necks.
A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance-you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.
The way someone who's being photographed presents himself to the camera, and the effect of the photographer's response on that presence, is what the making of a portrait is all about.
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