Martha Graham Quotes

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. I can correct it and tell them what they have done after they have done it, and what it means to me. But I don't say, "Be fearful here," "Be angry here," because I think that is intrusion.

We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life. This is the function of the American dance.

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of mankind — the landscape of the human soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human being can be.

The erotic element is life, but doesn't have to absorb you, it doesn't have to be a naughty word. It's the love of life in many ways.

I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do. 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.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

The body is a sacred garment: it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honour, and with joy and with fear as well. But always, though, with blessing.

When you start with an idea, or something hits you, then you have to follow that through to the end, and it's the following through to the end that makes the pattern. That, for me, is choreography.

I love words very much. I've always loved to talk, and I've always love words — the words that rest in your mouth, what words mean and how you taste them and so on. And for me the spoken word can be used almost as a gesture.

Dancing is very like poetry. It's like poetic lyricism, sometimes, it's like the rawness of dramatic poetry, it's like the terror — or it can be like a terrible revelation of meaning. Because when you light on a word it strikes you to your heart.

I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination.

To me, the only sin is mediocrity.

Many times I hear the phrase "the dance of life". It is an expression that touches me deeply, for the instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived — the human body.

I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living.

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. Then I need all the comfort that practice has stored in my memory, a tenacity of faith.