We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. One becomes in some area an athlete of God.
Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing.
I use the words gods and goddesses principally, I think, to mean beautiful bodies – bodies that are absolute instruments. And I believe in discipline, I believe in a very definite technique.
You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.
The world I’m interested in is the one where things are not named.
I’m asked so often whether I believe in life after death. I do believe in the sanctity of life, the continuity of life and of energy. I know the anonymity of death has no appeal for me. It is the now that I must face and want to face.
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.
The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual – as we think so will we act.
I believe that we learn by practice.
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.
Theater used to be a verb; it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place.
I never thought of myself as being a genius. I don’t know what genius is. I think a far better expression is a retriever, a lovely strong golden retriever that brings things back from the past, or retrieves things from our common blood memory.
One can always lament, you know – but to laugh in the face of life, that’s very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.
You don’t pick dance. Dance picks you.
My childhood years were a balance of dark and light.
You give all your life to doing this one thing. It sounds grim, it sounds frightening – it isn’t – it has a great gaiety at times and a great wonder.
The body is a sacred garment.
To me, a building – if it’s beautiful – is the love of one man, he’s made it out of his love for space, materials, things like that.
I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do.
I don’t try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it.