"People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life."
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Martha Graham quotes (page 2 of 7)
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"A dancer, more than any other human being, dies two deaths: the first, the physical when the powerfully trained body will no longer respond as you would wish. After all, I choreographed for myself. I never choreographed what I could not do. I changed steps in Medea and other ballets to accommodate the change. But I knew. And it haunted me. I only wanted to dance."
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"There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."
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"We are all of us, unique - each a unique pattern of creativity and if we do not fulfill it, it is lost for all time."
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"Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place."
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"I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it's communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people."
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"Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can."
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"Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to paradise of the achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration, there are daily small deaths."
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"Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain."
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"Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward."
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"You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."
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"The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living."
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"The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing."
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"I am certain that movement never lies. There is only one law of posture I have been able to discover - the perpendicular line connecting heaven and earth."
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"Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America."
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"Dancers are the messengers of the gods."
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"Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground."
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"Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired."
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"Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation."
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"It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is twofold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. The movement become clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life, the law which governs its outer aspects"
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