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How Many Leaps Did Nijinksy Take Before He Made The One That Startled The World? He Took Thousands And Thousands And It Is That Legend That Gives Us The Courage, The Energy, And Arrogance To Go Back Into The Studio Knowing That While There Is So Little Time To Be Born To The Instant, You Will Work Again Among The Many That You May Once More Be Born As One. That Is A Dancer's World.

-Martha Graham

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How Many Leaps Did

Martha Graham

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How Many Leaps Did Nijinksy Take Before He Made The One That Startled The World? He Took Thousands And Thousands And It Is That Legend That Gives Us The Courage, The Energy, And Arrogance To Go Back Into The Studio Knowing That While There Is So Little Time To Be Born To The Instant, You Will Work Again Among The Many That You May Once More Be Born As One. That Is A Dancer's World.

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There Is A Force, A Quickness That Is Translated Through You Into Action. If You Block It, The World Will Not Have It.

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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.

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.

There Is Fatigue So Great That The Body Cries, Even In Its Sleep.

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Think Of The Magic Of That Foot, Comparatively Small, Upon Which Your Whole Weight Rests. It's A Miracle, And The Dance Is A Celebration Of That Miracle.

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.

What People In The World Think Of You Is Really None Of Your Business.

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The Spine Is The Tree Of Life. Respect It.

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I've Relaxed My Feelings About Other Companies Performing My Works. I Have Never In Principle Been Against My Ballets Being Danced By Other Companies. Rather, It Is That We Lack The Time, Space And Money To Insure That They Are Done Well. To Me, The Only Sin Is Mediocrity.

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The Unique Must Be Fulfilled.

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.

Continuity Of Life

I Did Not Want To Be A Tree, A Flower Or A Wave. In A Dancer's Body, We As Audience Must See Ourselves, Not The Imitated Behavior Of Everyday Actions, Not The Phenomenon Of Nature, Not Exotic Creatures From Another Planet, But Something Of The Miracle That Is A Human Being.

It's What I Always Wanted To Do, To Show The Laughter, The Fun, The Joy Of Dance.

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Nothing Is More Revealing Than Movement.

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My Dancing Is Not An Attempt To Interpret Life In The Literary Sense. It Is An Affirmation Of Life Through Movement.

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The Secret To Dancing Is That It Is About Everything Except Dancing.

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If I Can't Dance, I Don't Care If My Dances Are Ever Done Again!

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The Body Is Shaped, Disciplined, Honored, And In Time, Trusted.

Sometimes It's Blood Memory... Not The Blood Your Mother And Father Gave You... But That Which Stretches Back Two Or Three Thousand Years.

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...although, As The Latin Verb To Educate, Educate, Indicates, It Is Not A Question Of Putting Something In But Drawing It Out, If It Is There To Begin With...i Want All Of My Students And All Of My Dancers To Be Aware Of The Poignancy Of Life At That Moment. I Would Like To Feel That I Had, In Some Way, Given Them The Gift Of Themselves.

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Some Of You Are Doomed To Be Artists.

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To Me, This Acquirement Of Nervous, Physical, And Emotional Concentration Is The One Element Possessed To The Highest Degree By The Truly Great Dancers Of The World. Its Acquirement Is The Result Of Discipline, Of Energy In The Deep Sense. That Is Why There Are So Few Great Dancers.

In 1980, A Well-meaning Fundraiser Came To See Me And Said, "miss Graham, The Most Powerful Thing You Have Going For You To Raise Money Is Your Respectability." I Wanted To Spit. Respectable! Show Me Any Artist Who Wants To Be Respectable.

All That Is Important Is This One Moment In Movement. Make The Moment Important, Vital, And Worth Living. Do Not Let It Slip Away Unnoticed And Unused.

In The End, It All Comes Down To The Art Of Breathing.

You See, When Weaving A Blanket, An Indian Woman Leaves A Flaw In The Weaving Of That Blanket To Let The Soul Out.

I Believe That We Learn By Practice... It Is The Performance Of A Dedicated Precise Set Of Acts, Physical Or Intellectual, From Which Come Shape Of Achievement, A Sense Of One's Being, A Satisfaction Of Spirit.

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Modern Dance Isn't Anything Except One Thing In My Mind: The Freedom Of Women In America.

Nobody Cares If You Can't Dance Well. Just Get Up And Dance. Great Dancers Are Great Because Of Their Passion.

The Past Is Not Dead; It Is Not Even Past. People Live On Inner Time; The Moment In Which A Decisive Thought Or Feeling Takes Place Can Be At Any Time. Timeless Feelings Are Common To All Of Us.

I Don't Try To Tell The Dancers Exactly What A Dance Means Before They Do It.

'age' Is The Acceptance Of A Term Of Years. But Maturity Is The Glory Of Years.

Dancing Is Just Discovery, Discovery, Discovery - What It All Means, The Way The Little Bone Near The Ankle Relates Itself To The Floor For A Perfect Stance, A Perfect Plie.

I Did Not Choose To Be A Dancer. I Was Chosen.

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