Twyla Tharp Quotes

“The thing about creativity is, people are going to laugh at it. Get over it.”

— Twyla Tharp

Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box

— Twyla Tharp

“Don't sign on for more problems than you must. Resist the temptation to involve yourself in other people's zones of expertise and responsibility. Monitor troublesome situations if you need to, but don't insert yourself unless you're running out of time and a solution is nowhere in sight. In short, stifle your inner control freak.”

— Twyla Tharp

“But obligation, I eventually saw, is not the same as commitment, and it's certainly not an acceptable reason to stick with something that isn't working”

— Twyla Tharp

“I start every dance with a box. I write the project name on the box, and as the piece progresses I fill it up with every item that went into the making of the dance.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I had always seen myself as a star; I wanted to be a galaxy.”

— Twyla Tharp

“To survive, you've got to keep wheedling your way. You can't just sit there and fight against odds when it's not going to work. You have to turn a corner, dig a hole, go through a tunnel - and find a way to keep moving.”

— Twyla Tharp

“When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.”

— Twyla Tharp

“When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.'”

— Twyla Tharp

“I don't hate language. I have my own language, but I also enjoy the English language. Obviously, you don't read a lot of literature and not care about language.”

— Twyla Tharp

I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.

— Twyla Tharp

“If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty - and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance.”

— Twyla Tharp

“A dancer's life is all about repetition.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Nothing is more terrifying to me, really, than the status quo. I'll make mistakes before I keep doing something the same way.”

— Twyla Tharp

“What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity.”

— Twyla Tharp

I started formal piano training when I was 4. From there I had little violas, and I had dancing lessons of every sort and description, and painting lessons. I had German. And shorthand.

— Twyla Tharp

“I feel I can handle the architecture of dance as well as anybody.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I find that dancers are only well trained in ballet these days.”

— Twyla Tharp

If I didn't believe in myself as a dancer, I wouldn't choreograph.

— Twyla Tharp

“I always tell students that you've got to be practical. You do not need a dream. You need a purpose, something you can wake up to in the morning when the dream is dissipated.”

— Twyla Tharp

In those days, male dancers were a rarer breed than women. as they are still today, A good male dancer, one as strong as we were, was very difficult to come by if you couldn't afford to pay them.

— Twyla Tharp

“Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound.”

— Twyla Tharp

“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.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Dance should not just divide people into audience and performers. Everyone should be a participant, whether going to classes or attending special events or rehearsals.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I've survived inattention. I hope to God I survive attention.”

— Twyla Tharp

“It's always a problem, getting the curtain in at the end of the first act; having enough of a resolve so that you can bring the curtain in and then opening the show a second time is a little bizarre as a tradition. I've always preferred to go straight through.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Sadly, some people never get beyond the box stage in their creative life. We all know people who have announced that they've started work on a project
say, a book
but some time passes, and when you politely ask how it's going, they tell you that they're still researching. Weeks, months, years pass and they produce nothing. They have tons of research but it's never enough to nudge them toward the actual process of writing the book.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Venturing out of your comfort zone may be dangerous, yet do it anyways because our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.”

— Twyla Tharp

“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.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process ... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I had received my first establishment grants in response to applications filed the year before. To the pages of baffling forms I had simply attached a handwritten note saying, 'I make dances, not applications. Send the money. Love, Twyla.”

— Twyla Tharp

It's vital to establish some rituals-automatic but decisive patterns of behavior-at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

— Twyla Tharp

“You have to believe there's something at the other side. And you have to have faith in yourself. You have to think that you have the tools to accomplish it.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Solitude is an unavoidable part of creativity. Self-reliance is a happy by-product.”

— Twyla Tharp

“In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Dance is the stepchild of the arts.”

— Twyla Tharp

“You can keep on chewing gum for ten hours, but after about a minute and a half you've got all the good out of it.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I think of music as fuel, its spectrum of energy governed by tempi, volume, and heart.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Limits are a secret blessing, and bounty can be a curse.”

— Twyla Tharp

“That's what improvising is like for me. There's no tollbooth between my impulse and my action.”

— Twyla Tharp

Without the little ideas, there are no big ideas.

— Twyla Tharp

I was valedictorian. Did I enjoy going to school? I hated it. It wasn't a choice on my part, it was expected.

— Twyla Tharp

“Failing, and learning from it, is necessary. Unil you've done it, you're missing an important piece of your creative arsenal.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Obligation is a flimsy base for creativity, way down the list behind passion, courage, instinct, and the desire to do something great.”

— Twyla Tharp

Confidence is a trait that has to be earned honestly and refreshed constantly; you have to work as hard to protect your skills as you did to develop them ... The one thing that creative souls around the world have in common is that they all have to practice to maintain their skills. Art is a vast democracy of habit.

— Twyla Tharp

“My greatest fear in working is always the end. Lately I have taken to tricking myself into finishing by leaving a hole in the middle somewhere, then stitching the two pieces together - the Union Pacific approach.”

— Twyla Tharp

“Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world. Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it. Without the time and effort invested in getting ready to create, you can be hit by a thunderbolt and it'll just leave you stunned.”

— Twyla Tharp

“I'm often asked, 'Where do you get your ideas?' ... It's like asking, 'Where do you find air to breathe?' Ideas are all around you.”

— Twyla Tharp