Quotes About Interpretation

'What is this', and 'How is this done?' are the first two questions to ask of any work of art. The second question immediately illuminates the first, but it often doesn't get asked. Perhaps it sounds too technical. Perhaps it sounds pedestrian.

There are a lot of things that make up a performance, a lot of technical things. It isn't always just about pulling it up from the darkest recesses of your mind or your heart. It's your experience and your observation.

For a performer, passion is far more important than technical skills. If a dancer's leg isn't at a perfect angle, I can see past that, but if someone's dead in the face, it's really boring.

You can't act for the editing. You have to leave that to him. So you just go in and do the scene the way you think is right or whatever you're directed to do, and leave the rest of that technical stuff up to the director.

The challenge is to balance the technical elements and what is required of us with being artists and telling a story.

You have to be serious, and you must have a constantly inquiring mind. But I find it's new music that really stretches me, both technically and as an interpreter.

I can't do pieces I only admire technically. I have to feel some direct contact with them.

I know people who prepare their roles in such a way that they technically look ahead and memorize their gestures, and then they stick to it. Those that are technically proficient enough can make it seem natural, but they do that and don't really take in what other people are doing.

It's technically extremely difficult to get down what you really mean, not what you think you mean, or what you think sounds good, but what's really there, what you really have to express, in words that somehow convey that meaning in an approximate way.

Even though technically the fundamentals of acting are always the same in every medium, what's different is the size.

You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians that are around - the writer, the director, the other actors.

To me, there's way more to being a good drummer than precision and technique.

To me, the technique was almost irrelevant; it was what was coming across.

It's not a film-maker's job to explain his technique, but to tell his story the best way he can.

I bring ideas to set, and I'm more than willing for those to be affected and be malleable based on what the other person gives me. I don't know what another actor is going to give me, on the day, and I don't want to be so hard and fast in my technique that I'm not open to what's coming.

Technique is superficial. The method used in applying technique is what gives music its character.

For 'Chicago,' the dancers need to demonstrate an affinity for the Fosse style. Sometimes dancers come in with brilliant technique, but if the Fosse style isn't easy for them, or it's awkward for them, they won't be right for this show.

I've started to look at guitar playing from more than just a standpoint of using certain modes and techniques.

Everyone seems to think they know what acting techniques are. Techniques just help you get to a certain place, but if the thing is happening just by itself, you don't need those techniques.

I think people's interpretation of a body slam is different than the techniques.

I feel like great TED Talks are ones that are a little bit subject to interpretation, that do provoke further conversation - and potentially controversy.

Many of the Central Asians know Russian, and Ted Levin speaks it fluently. I speak Chinese, but Mongolian is completely different, so we had to have translators.

Ted Cruz is the Schroedinger's cat of politicians. He is both eligible and not eligible to be president.

It's insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it's assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It's that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he's telling you something about his own life. It's so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!