110+ Martha Graham Quotes On Creativity, Dance And Dynamic

Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer. She was one of the most influential figures in 20th century dance and was a pioneer of modern dance. She developed a unique style of movement, based on the contraction and release of the body, which was a significant departure from the more rigid techniques of classical ballet. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Martha Graham on creativity, dance, dynamic.

Top 10 Martha Graham Quotes

1. Our arms start from the back because they were once wings.
2. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.
3. Remember that you are unique. If that is not fulfilled, then something wonderful has been lost.
4. The body says what words cannot.
5. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
6. The body is a sacred garment. It's your first and last garment; it is what you enter life in and what you depart life with, and it should be treated with honor.
7. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
8. Misery is a communicable disease.
9. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
10. Dance is communication, and so the great challenge is to speak clearly, beautifully and with inevitability.

Martha Graham Image Quotes

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. — Martha Graham

Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place. — Martha Graham

Martha Graham Short Quotes

• No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time; it is just that others are behind the times.
• Theater is a verb before it is a noun, an act before it is a place.
• 'Age' is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.
• The body is a sacred garment.
• In the end, it all comes down to the art of breathing.
• Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
• Nothing is more revealing than movement.
• I get up, I fall down, all the while I am dancing.
• Repetition not for monotony but the ecstasy it induces.
• What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.

Martha Graham Quotes About Dance

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. — Martha Graham

You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

Dance is a song of the body. Either of joy or pain. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. — Martha Graham

The reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living. — Martha Graham

Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America. — Martha Graham

Freedom to a dancer means discipline. That is what technique is for -- liberation. — Martha Graham

Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground. — Martha Graham

Martha Graham Quotes About Dancing

Dancers are the messengers of the gods. — Martha Graham

My dancing is not an attempt to interpret life in the literary sense. It is an affirmation of life through movement. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

You will only get out of a dance class what you bring to it. Learn by practice. — Martha Graham

Great dancers are not great because of their technique; they are great because of their passion. — Martha Graham

The spine is the tree of life. Respect it. — Martha Graham

Dancing is a very living art. It is essentially of the moment, although a very old art. A dancer's art is lived while he is dancing. Nothing is left of his art except the pictures and the memories--when his dancing days are over. — Martha Graham

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. — Martha Graham

A dancer must listen to his body and pay homage to it. Behind the movement lies this terrible, driving passion, this necessity. I won't settle for anything less. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

Martha Graham Quotes About Life

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. The instrument through which the dance speaks is also the instrument through which life is lived ... the human body. — Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life. — Martha Graham

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. — Martha Graham

Martha Graham Quotes About Unique

You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

The unique must be fulfilled. — Martha Graham

Martha Graham Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — Martha Graham

Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart. — Martha Graham

Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired. — Martha Graham

Looking at the past is like lolling in a rocking chair. It is so relaxing and you can rock back and forth on the porch, and never go forward. — Martha Graham

There is a force, a quickness that is translated through you into action. If you block it, the world will not have it. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

If you feel depressed you shouldn't go out on the street because it will show on your face and you'll give it to others. Misery is a communicable disease. — Martha Graham

The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body. I don't leap and jump anymore. I look at young dancers, and I am envious, more aware of what glories the body contains. But sensitivity is not made dull by age. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

America does not concern itself now with Impressionism. We own no involved philosophy. The psyche of the land is to be found in its movement. It is to be felt as a dramatic force of energy and vitality. We move; we do not stand still. We have not yet arrived at the stock-taking stage. — Martha Graham

Dancers today can do anything; the technique is phenomenal. The passion and the meaning to their movement can be another thing. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

At the time I started in ballet they were dancing 'The Spirit of Champagne' on pointe, in Paris. I thought, 'I don't want to dance the spirit of champagne, I want to drink it! — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

The gesture is the thing truly expressive of the individual - as we think so will we act. — Martha Graham

I don't think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

It takes ten years, usually, to make a dancer. It takes ten years of handling the instrument, handling the material with which you are dealing, for you to know it completely. — Martha Graham

The next time you look into the mirror, just look at the way the ears rest next to the head; look at the way the hairline grows; think of all the little bones in your wrist. It is a miracle. And the dance is a celebration of that miracle. — Martha Graham

It's what I always wanted to do, to show the laughter, the fun, the joy of dance. — Martha Graham

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 — Martha Graham

There is fatigue so great that the body cries, even in its sleep. — Martha Graham

It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. — Martha Graham

Dance is the hidden language of the soul — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

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

All things I do are in every woman. Every woman is Medea. Every woman is Jocasta. There comes a time when a woman is a mother to her husband. Clytemnestra is every woman when she kills. — Martha Graham

I believe one thing: that today is yesterday and tomorrow is today and you can't stop. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

I have heard stories that it was love at first sight for both of us, that we disappeared to a guest room at Merle's house, had our meals sent up, and didn't emerge for several days. This is absolutely untrue. I would never behave like that as a guest in someone's home. Carlos and I went to my beach house. — Martha Graham

Sometimes it's blood memory... not the blood your mother and father gave you... but that which stretches back two or three thousand years. — Martha Graham

Discipline is liberation. — Martha Graham

...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. — Martha Graham

Learn by practice. — Martha Graham

What I do must be done in the sunlight of awareness. — Martha Graham

The secret to dancing is that it is about everything except dancing. — Martha Graham

If I can't dance, I don't care if my dances are ever done again! — Martha Graham

Stand up! Keep your backs straight! Remember that this is where the wings grow. — Martha Graham

First we have to believe, and then we believe. — Martha Graham

I don't try to tell the dancers exactly what a dance means before they do it. — Martha Graham

I did not choose to be a dancer. I was chosen. — Martha Graham

The world I'm interested in is the one where things are not named. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

Art is eternal for it reveals the inner landscape which is the soul of man. — Martha Graham

You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being. — Martha Graham

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. — Martha Graham

I want to make people feel intensely alive. I'd rather have them against me than indifferent. — Martha Graham

I feel that the essence of dance is the expression of man--the landscape of his soul. I hope that every dance I do reveals something of myself or some wonderful thing a human can be. — Martha Graham

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

I'd rather an audience like me than dislike me, but I'd rather they disliked me than be apathetic, because that is the kiss of death. — Martha Graham

What makes a great dancer is not technique. What makes a great dancer is passion. — Martha Graham

Some of you are doomed to be artists. — Martha Graham

It's not my job to look beautiful. It's my job to look interesting. — Martha Graham

Theater used to be a verb; it used to be an act. But nowadays it is just a noun. It is a place. — Martha Graham

I believe that we learn by practice. — Martha Graham

You have no right to go before a public without an adequate technique, just because you feel. Anything feels - a leaf feels, a storm feels - what right have you to do that? You have to have speech, and it's a cultivated speech. — Martha Graham

I believe that dance was the first art. A philosopher has said that dance and architecture were the first arts. I believe that dance was first because it's gesture, it's communication. That doesn't mean it's telling a story, but it means it's communicating a feeling, a sensation to people. — Martha Graham

Life Lessons by Martha Graham

1. Martha Graham taught us to never give up on our dreams and to always strive to be the best version of ourselves. She showed us that hard work and dedication can help us to achieve our goals, even when the odds may seem insurmountable.
2. Martha Graham also taught us to have faith in ourselves and to never be afraid to take risks. She showed us that the only way to truly grow and reach our potential is to push ourselves beyond our comfort zone.
3. Finally, Martha Graham taught us to be passionate and to never lose sight of our dreams. She showed us that with the right attitude and perseverance, anything is possible.