My own physicality, not an abstract idea, makes me a choreographer.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of personal experience and physical embodiment in the creative process of choreography.
Twyla Tharp's quote highlights the integral role that her own body and personal experiences play in her artistry as a choreographer. Rather than relying solely on concepts or theories, she asserts that her physicality and lived experiences are essential to her creative expression, suggesting that true art emerges from an authentic connection between the artist and their medium.
In practice
During a speech about the importance of physical expression in dance, one could use this quote to illustrate the significance of personal experience.
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 never step upon a stage without asking myself whether I will succeed in finishing the opera. The fact is that a conscientious singer is never sure of himself or of anything. He is ever in the hands of Destiny.
The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that's why we're all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it's actually part of your emotional make-up, in a way.
I think the most interesting question is, why do you act? I act because I have felt in acting some of the most free moments of my life...I think it's also one thing that scares me the most.
I just want to see more women in film and behind the camera. I'm tired of seeing movies from one perspective.
The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.
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