85 Twyla Tharp Quotes

Why Twyla Tharp Quotes?

Twyla Tharp is best known as an American dancer, choreographer, and author who founded the company Twyla Tharp Dance in 1966.

Mostly working with classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop, the company toured the world from 1971 to 1988, performing original works which any kids who are into dance schools or clubs are very likely to come across.

She has written three books: 'Push Comes to Shove', 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life', and 'The Collaborative Habit'.

Looking at quotes from Twyla Tharp together helps inspire creativity, a love of art, good habit building, and brave personal choices.

What parents should know

• Twyla Tharp was born on a farm in Portland, Indiana, referred to herself as a “devoted bookworm” and says her schedule left little time for a social life in her youth.
• She has received two Emmy awards and 19 honorary doctorates as well as numerous awards and grants, plus a Doctor of Arts degree awarded by Harvard University in 2018.
• Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery featured Tharp in their "Dancing the Dream" exhibition, cementing her fame as a pioneer of American modern dance.

What to talk about with kids

• Twyla spent a few months each year living with her grandparents, taking lessons in dance, lots of musical instruments, shorthand, German and French.
• Twyla worked at her parents’ drive-in movie theatre in California before she went to study at the Vera Lynn school of dance.
• Twyla became a professional dancer when she was 22, joining the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

Twyla Tharp Quotes On Creativity

"I don't think that scheduling is uncreative. I think that structure is required for creativity."

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

“Without passion, all the skill in world won't lift you above your craft.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything."

“There, in a nutshell, is the essence of creativity: There are a number of possibilities, but only one solution looks inevitable.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Someone has done it before? Honey, it's all been done before. Nothing's original. Not Homer or Shakespeare and certainly not you. Get over yourself.” -'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them."

“We get into ruts when we run with the first idea that pops into our head, not the last one.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

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

“We want our artists to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise us.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“I'm in a room with the obligation to create a major dance piece. The dancers will be here in a few minutes. What are we going to do?” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“A lot of habitually creative people have preparation rituals linked to the setting in which they choose to start their day. By putting themselves into that environment, they start their creative day.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Creativity is not just for artists. It's for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way."

“Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“It doesn't matter if it's a book, magazine, newspaper, billboard, instruction manual, or cereal box -- reading generates ideas because you're literally filling your head with ideas and letting your imagination filter them for something useful.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“The goal is to connect with something old, so it becomes new. Look and imagine.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Everything that happens in my day is a transaction between the external world and my internal world.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things."

Twyla Tharp Quotes On Art

"Dance has never been a particularly easy life, and everybody knows that."

“Art is a vast democracy of habit.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"What we want from modern dance is courage and audacity."

“Zoe refers to the aggregate. Bios accommodates the notion of death, that each life has a beginning, middle, and end, that each life contains a story.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Movement stimulates our brains in ways we don't appreciate.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Destiny, quite often, is a determined parent. Mozart was hardly some naïve prodigy who sat down at the keyboard and, with God whispering in his ears, let music flow from his fingertips.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"A dancer's life is all about repetition."

“I am magnetically drawn to images, whether they're paintings, photographs, film, or video. They are all lodestones of inspiration to me.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we're experiencing to what we have experienced before.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

“Habitually creative people are, in E.B. white's phrase, prepared to be lucky.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"If art is the bridge between what you see in your mind and what the world sees, then skill is how you build that bridge."

“You don't get lucky without preparation, and there's no sense in being prepared if you're not open to the possibility of a glorious accident. In creative endeavors, luck is a skill.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Reading, conversation, environment, culture, heroes, mentors, nature – all are lottery tickets for creativity. Scratch away at them, and you'll find out how big a prize you've won.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"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."

“My greatest dream is always to be luckier.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“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.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

Twyla Tharp Quotes On Habits

"I work because I have issues and questions and feelings and thoughts that I want to have a look at."

"If you only do what you know and do it very, very well, chances are that you won't fail. You'll just stagnate, and your work will get less and less interesting, and that's failure by erosion". - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“ciúnas gan uaigneas = quietness without loneliness.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Creativity is a habit and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"I'm not in need of, or wanting, particularly, to know what other folk are up to."

“Use your worry, but know when to leave it behind.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Reading is your first line of defense against an empty head.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"You may wonder which came first: the skill or the hard work. But that's a moot point. The Zen master cleans his own studio. So should you." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“You are never lonely when the mind is engaged.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Remember this when you're struggling for a big idea. You're much better off scratching for a small one.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Life is about moving; it's about change. And when things stop doing that, they're dead."

“In the end, there is no one ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"I think people want very much to simplify their lives enough so that they can control the things that make it possible to sleep at night."

"I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot."

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

“I read for growth, firmly believing that what you are today and what you will be in five years depends on two things: the people you meet and the books you read.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"I began as a dancer, and in those days of pain and shock, I went back to where I started." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"You remember much more than you may think you do, in ways you haven't considered." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Like creativity, collaboration is a habit—and one I encourage you to develop.” - 'The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together'.

“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.” - 'The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together'.

"Creating dance is the thing I know best. It is how I recognize myself. Even in the worst of times, such habits sustain, protect, and, in the most unlikely way, lift us up."

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life'.

Twyla Tharp Quotes On Fear

“...Get busy copying. Traveling the paths of greatness, even in someone else's footprints, is a vital means to acquiring skill. Choose your muse wisely!” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism."

“I became my own rebellion. Going with your head makes it arbitrary.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Too much planning implies you've got it all under control. That's boring, unrealistic, and dangerous.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"The only thing I fear more than change is no change. The business of being static makes me nuts."

“I can't emphasize this idea enough. Getting involved with your collaborator's problems almost always distracts you from your own.” - 'The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together'.

“There are mighty demons, but they're hardly unique to me. You probably share some.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“When I walk into [the studio], I am alone, but I am alone with my body, ambition, ideas, passions, needs, memories, goals, prejudices, distractions, fears.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“There's nothing wrong with fear; the only mistake is to let it stop you in your tracks.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Perhaps he needed the ritual to feel like a musician, or the playing somehow connected him to musical notes, his vocabulary.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“The key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you've begun.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“My heroes are those who've prevailed over far greater losses than I've ever had to face.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Let me tell you my five big fears:
1. People will laugh at me.
2. Someone has done it before.
3. I have nothing to say.
4. I will upset someone I love.
5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind."
-'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Better an imperfect dome in Florence than cathedrals in the clouds.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"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." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"Going with your gut means you have no choice. It's inevitable, which is why I have no regrets." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

"It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience."

"If you're at a dead end, take a deep breath, stamp your foot, and shout, "Begin!" You never know where it will take you." - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Do them anyway - you can never spend enough time on the basics.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“I have learned over the years that you should never save for two meetings what you can accomplish in one.” - 'The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life'.

“Michelangelo is celebrated for the Sistine Chapel; in fact, he supervised a dozen unacknowledged assistants.” - 'The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together'.

“By the twentieth century, only a few self-isolated sects practiced the collaborative tradition.” - 'The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons For Working Together'.

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