Quotes from Twyla Tharp

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

Schubert had arguably the same melodic gift as Mozart, but even less support. He didn't have the early exposure, never got to travel anywhere, and yet generated and amassed a body of work that grew and developed and is very profound.

My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the best ditch digger in the world.'

I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time. There's an energy that comes through the release of tension that is laughter.

Nothing is more terrifying to me, really, than the status quo. I'll make mistakes before I keep doing something the same way.

In the future, I will make certain that I commit to projects so there's enough breathing space for me to have an emotional life.

I have the wherewithal to challenge myself for my entire life. That's a great gift.

No artist is well served in thinking what will happen to their works. The best one can hope is that they'll enter the mainstream, and people will pull bits and pieces from them.

I do at least 75 push-ups a day.

I think that anyone who's pushed to do the very best that they can is privileged. It's a luxury.

I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.

When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.

Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.

Desire is the first thing a modern dancer should have. Skill can be developed. But if you don't have desire as a modern dancer, forget it.

It's very difficult for me to do fund raising for my own organization if I'm working for other companies because sponsors will say, 'Well, hey, man, if she's doing a ballet for Ballet Theatre, we'll give money to Ballet Theatre.'

A dancer's life is all about repetition.

Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart.

When I started making dances in the '60s, narrative dance was sort of off the radar screen. What was important at the time in the avant-garde was minimalism.

I've always felt compelled to explore range, because, as far as I know, we're only here once. So let's see how much we can encompass.

I see dance as glue for a community.

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.

Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.

The blank space can be humbling. But I've faced it my whole professional life. It's my job. It's also my calling. Bottom line: Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.

Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.