Mastery is an elusive concept. You never know when you achieve it absolutely and it may not help you to feel you've attained it. We can recognize it more readily in others than we can in ourselves. We have to discover our own definition of it. Twyla Tharp More Quotes by Twyla Tharp More Quotes From Twyla Tharp I began to discriminate between fear and excitement. The two, though very close, are completely different. Fear is negative excitement, choking your imagination. Real excitement produces an energy that overcomes apprehension and makes you want to close in on your goal. Twyla Tharp dance real motivational I think that probably the moments of discovery do come from a place that is not totally organized. Order is something that we already know about. Discoveries are in a place we don't already know about. Twyla Tharp dance discovery thinking It's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. Twyla Tharp justify difficult dance This is not a pleasant route for many young people to consider. You have to be either hopelessly passionate, or very stupid. Twyla Tharp dance stupid people There's this expression called postmodernism, which is kind of silly, and destroys a perfectly good word called modern, which now no longer means anything. Twyla Tharp stupid silly mean We're a machine and we have to be worked in the same way we have to be fed. Twyla Tharp machines dance way Our guys have a vision of something bigger. Twyla Tharp bigger vision guy My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a college degree. She was educated as a pianist and she wanted to concertize, but when the war came she was married, had a family, so she started teaching. Twyla Tharp teaching mother war I always, somehow, knew that I was going to dance. Twyla Tharp dance My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment, which is a good thing for someone who still thinks of themselves as a very basic American. Twyla Tharp simple mother education 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. Twyla Tharp strong-women dancer males I don't think politicians should be allowed into power who are not familiar with their bodies, because that's where our bottom line is. And I know that they would make totally different decisions if they felt responsible simply for their own bodies. Twyla Tharp different decision thinking The necessity to constantly turn in an excellent performance, to be absolutely wedded to this dedication and this ideal means that as a child you're going to pay for it personally. Twyla Tharp dedication mean children I'm a known reader. That's what I do with my time. Twyla Tharp my-time known reader It takes skill to bring something you've imagined into the world: to use words to create believable lives, to select the colors and textures of paint to represent a haystack at sunset, to combine ingredients to make a flavorful dish. No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repitition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time. . . . 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. Twyla Tharp sunset exercise art I walk into a large white room. It's a dance studio in midtown Manhattan. The room is clean, virtually spotless if you don’t count the thousands of skid marks and footprints left there by dancers rehearsing. Other than the mirrors, the boom box, the skid marks, and me, the room is empty. Twyla Tharp dancer mirrors white In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started. Twyla Tharp creativity creative wrestling The more you know, the better you can imagine. Twyla Tharp imagine knows It was not until I had graduated from college that I made a professional commitment to it. Frankly, I didn't think it wise. I was my own interior parental force, and it's very difficult to justify a profession as a dancer. Twyla Tharp college wise commitment The formal education that I received made little sense to me. Twyla Tharp made education littles
