 |
"A choreographic idea flows only
as fast as the initiator can communicate it to
bodies and see them realize it."
- 'Translations' by Marcia B Siegal in Dance Ink,
Spring 1993 |
|
"Just like it is rare to get a
good guru, it is equally rare for gurus to get a
good disciple. Every performer is not an able
guru and vice-versa. Not everyone has the kind
of patience required for teaching."
- Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma, santoor exponent "There
is a lack of proper taleem because a lot of
today's gurus are top performers and have one
foot in India and the other in the US all the
time. When will they teach?"
- Pt Hari Prasad Chaurasia, flautist
('Heir Gloom' by Arindham Mukherjee, Outlook, Sept
25, 2006) |
|
"To avoid criticism do nothing,
say nothing, be nothing."
- Elbert Hubbard |
|
"For me, the best part is
improvising and seeing how you can express
yourself. I have always added dance to my
productions. When I was directing theatre, I
added dance sequences where they didn't exist in
the play. I think dance is the ultimate form of
expression."
- Valerie Weiss, film maker
(Her film, "Dance by Design," is about a woman
studying architecture who falls in love with
dance) |
|
"Great people should mean people
great in living their lives, whether famous or
not, because there may be great people who
remain unrecognized."
- Rukmini Devi |
|
"When I first started playing
with dancers, my peers started saying haath khul
jaayega and my playing would suffer. But I was
confident that playing with dancers would only
enhance my chaumukha or versatile playing."
(Tabla maestro Kishan Maharaj in 'The reign of
Raja and Maharaj,' The Hindu, Delhi June 9, 2005) |
|
"An ounce of performance is worth
pounds of promises."
- Mae West |
|
The pristine purity of
Bharatanatyam should never be compromised.
Luckily, this program was billed only as 'dance'
and not as 'Bharatanatyam.'
('Full of poise' by B M Sundaram, The Hindu, Music
Season, Jan 3, 2006) Altering other's
compositions is best avoided. It is common for
some dancers to change a few words or lines in
some Padams, as they appear lewd. Instead, they
can opt for some other Padam.
Songs, just for their srungara content cannot
be called Padams.
('Exotic and expressive' by B M Sundaram, The
Hindu, Music Season, Jan 6, 2006) |
|
"A good teacher is
better than a spectacular teacher. Otherwise the
teacher outshines the
teachings."
- The Tao of Teaching |
|
Criticism has to
be unflattering sometimes. It isn't produced to
instruct dancers how to
correct or improve their work. And it requires
more than instant, off-the-cuff
reaction.
Critiquing and writing criticism
are not the same...
Criticism plays an important
role in the evolution of a culture. It
establishes a detailed historical
record. Previews and other informational writing
create mythology in advance.
After the performance, the dancers
and the companies themselves carry on that
mythology, and through the normal
process of information decay, it spins into ever
more reductive categorizing
and celebrating. The critical account comes from
the scene itself, as opposed
to those other accounts delivered before the
fact. It's an authentic, public
response - even if it's partial, even if it's
subjective, even if it's
inaccurate - of one person to a public event.
And of course, the more critical
views there are of that public event, the fuller
picture of it emerges
when it's over. History has to be bigger and
deeper than the record that's
controlled by dancers themselves.
(Marcia B Siegel in 'Critical Practice
in the Age of Spin' - DCA (Dance Critics
Association) News Winter 2005) |
|
"The dance is a poem
of which each movement is a word."
- Mata Hari |
|
I do not think one
should be innovative for the sake of being
innovative. Or try to do something
under pressure. Particularly the growing craze
for thematic presentation
is amusing, when there is a margam that is
versatile, vibrant and offers
enough variety.
(Alarmel Valli in 'When tradition
is given new dimensions,' The Hindu, Dec 1, 2005) |
|
It's the heart afraid
of breaking that never learns to dance.
It is the dream afraid of waking
that never takes the chance.
It is the one who won't be taken
who cannot seem to give.
And the soul afraid of dying
that never learns to live.
- Bette Midler |
|
"Though Kuchipudi
dance form is not my personal favorite, I am
sensitive to the fact that,
like Kathakali, it needs great help to maintain
the dance drama tradition
in all male format. Moreover, in its absence the
form has degenerated
into "so-low" dance form! I am not against
female dancers but just want
that coming generation of rasikas are not bereft
of experiencing the joy
of watching men convincingly perform as women."
(Subbudu in 'Dance like a woman!'
Statesman, June 10, 2005) |
|
"I can do my dance,
and I can feel one thing, and the audience
member can see it and feel another,
and there's nothing wrong... It gives everybody
a lot of room."
- Douglas Dunn (Courtesy DCA News
(Dance Critics Association USA), Spring 2000) |
|
"Reasons may be several
but the fact is classical dance is just not
attracting crowds. What is
it that keeps music lovers away from classical
dance? Why are the majority
of music rasikas not able to appreciate dance?
Could it be that the habit
of listening to music kutcheris is deeply
ingrained handed down from generation
to generation over the past hundred years,
whereas attending public performances
of Bharatanatyam is of relatively recent origin
starting in the 1930s?
What could motivate the section
of music lovers which is probably too lazy,
indifferent, snooty or simply
too busy to try and educate itself on the
aesthetic nuances of Bharatanatyam?
Dance, like music, is the expression
of the human spirit. Dance is 'visual music'."
(S Janaki in 'Why dance finds few
takers,' The Hindu, Dec 1, 2005) |
|
"Dance is your pulse,
your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm
of your life. It's the
expression in time and movement, in happiness,
joy, sadness and envy."
- Jaques D'Amboise |
|
"The arts stand naked
and without defense in a world where what cannot
be measured is not valued;
where what cannot be predicted will not be
risked...where whatever cannot
deliver a forecast outcome is not undertaken...
The final value of the arts cannot
be predicted or quantified; to curtail them on
these grounds is to deny
the possibility of an unpredictable benefit. The
risk of funding the arts
offers benefits far greater then the immediate
gains of not funding them.
The arts link society to its past, a people to
its inherited store of ideas,
images and words; yet the arts challenge those
links in order to find ways
of exploring new paths and ventures...
The arts are evolutionary and
revolutionary; they listen, recall and lead.
They resist the homogenous,
strengthen the individual and are independent in
the face of the pressures
of the mass, the bland, the undifferentiated. In
a post modern world in
which individual creativity has never mattered
more, the arts provide the
opportunity for developing this characteristic.
The investment in the arts
is small, the actual return so large, that it
represents value as research
into ideas."
John Tusa ('Why the arts matter'
The Hindu, Dec 14, 2005) |
|
"Dancers are instruments,
like a piano the choreographer plays."
- George Balanchine |
|
"Some traditionalists
came down heavily on my research but I told
them, If you find it inconvenient
to accept my style, then I shall call my dance
Bharatanrityam instead of
Bharatanatyam."
(Padma Subrahmanyam, Aug 2004 Savvy,
p 49, 'Dance Diva') |
|
"You can tell whether
a man is clever by his answers. You can tell
whether a man is wise by his
questions."
- Naguib Mahfouz |
|
"Only people, who
can't do the stuff we do, say such things. They
have no idea of the hard
work, discipline, physical exertion and
creativity that goes into such
'circus acts'. Most classical dancers oppose my
work.
The ultimate tribute a shishya
can pay a guru is to try to go beyond him/her,
but classical dancers do
not encourage this."
- Daksha Sheth in 'Dance to a different
beat,' the Hindu, June 12, 2005 |
|
"The Dancer believes
that his art has something to say which cannot
be expressed in words or
in any other way than by dancing... there are
times when the simple dignity
of movement can fulfill the function of a volume
of words. There are movements
which impinge upon the nerves with a strength
that is incomparable, for
movement has power to stir the senses and
emotions, unique in itself. This
is the dancer's justification for being, and his
reason for searching further
for deeper aspects of his art."
- Doris Humphrey, 1937 |
|
"A stage has now
come, when there is a general conflict between
tradition bound purists
and tradition bound Innovators. The purists
always argue that in classical
dance, our ancestors have created the best and
the finest masterpieces
with the result there is no scope for modern
enthusiasts to better them
whereas, the Innovators are of the determined
opinion that even in a tradition-bound
art there is scope for variety, unbounded
richness and unique nuances...
A sense of revolt and change
is ever present in most practicing artists. It
is this spirit of adventure
that makes art a mirror of its time. It is a
common practice amongst all
aged persons to condemn the changes of their
present days and praise their
good old days. But when the changes get settled
in the patterns of art,
there are no more voices denigrating erstwhile
changes, because they have
become one with tradition! And so life goes on,
art marches on and culture
passes on."
("Tradition and Innovation in Indian
dance," U S Krishna Rao, in Shrungara, Maha-Maya
Golden Jubilee Celebrations
Souvenir, 1992) |
|
"We dance for laughter,
we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we
dance for fears, we dance
for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the
dancers, we create the dreams." |
|
Nowadays, if some
persons are vastly talented than us, we do not
congratulate them – we envy
them and resent their success. It seems we do
not want heroes we can admire,
so much as heroes we can identify with. We want
to think we can be like
them, and so we make sure to select heroes that
are like us. We worship
David Beckam because he is fallible. If Achilles
were around today, the
headlines would all be about his heel.
Raw talent is not distributed
equally. By definition, most of us are not
exceptional. We are neither
particularly stupid, nor exceptionally
intelligent. Only a very few are
extremely gifted. But it is to these
exceptionally talented people that
the rest of us owe most of the greatest
achievements of humankind. The
Mona Lisa, the Goldberg variations and King Lear
were not the work of ordinary
people like you and me. They were the work of
geniuses, people so much
more talented than us that we could never paint
or write anything comparable
to their achievements, no matter how hard we
tried or how long we lived.
To some, those thoughts seem so
humiliating and threatening that it must not
even be countenanced. But
to me it is liberating and inspiring. It is
precisely the realization that
I will never be the equal of Mozart or Goethe
that allows me to sit back
and enjoy what they have bequeathed to me. It is
my recognition of their
greatness, my admission of their immeasurable
superiority of their talent
that redeems my mediocrity. It is good to be
human, not because every human
can be great, but because a few people have
shown us the heights to which
humanity can occasionally ascend. Without the
shining achievements of these
few, the human race would be a waste of space.
Consider also how unattractive
it is when someone begrudges another's talent,
when they cannot praise
success without also seeking to undermine it or
feel diminished when a
colleague wins praise. It is a sign of a mean
spirit. Conversely, the person
who shows unreserved admiration thereby becomes
admirable. To applaud someone
else's achievements or good fortune, without the
slightest trace of envy
or resentment, is a mark of true generosity.
(Dylan Evans, "Mozart redeems
our mediocrity", the Hindu, July 22, 2005) |
|
"Too many times we
stand aside and let the waters slip away,
till what we put off till tomorrow
has now become today.
So don't you sit upon the shoreline
and say you're satisfied.
Choose to chance the rapids and
dare to dance the tide."
- Anonymous |
|
"It has been said
with some justification that the oversized
dancer in Indian classical dance
does not evoke the kind of waspish comments he
or she would in the West,
where ballet is less accommodating of the fat
dancer. We quote verses from
the Natya Shastra or the Abhinaya Darpana
upholding comments made on the
dance, but keep silent when it comes to a dancer
whose girth negates the
physical attributes prescribed for a dancer in
the shastras. In fact, some
performers would seem to sport those very
qualities mentioned as disqualification."
- Leela Venkataraman in 'A question
of weight,' Hindu, Delhi, June 10, 2005) |
|
"Dancing in all its
forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of
all noble education; dancing
with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need
I add that one must also
be able to dance with the pen?"
- Friedrich Nietzsche |
|
"At the recent Thyagaraja
Festival in Delhi, I heard the guest of honor
paid floral tribute to the
portrait of St Thyagaraja wearing his Prada
shoes. This is just one of
the many stories where the sanctity of the art
is sold in lieu of gimmickry.
Last year at two dance recitals, the dancers
came down from the stage to
present the bouquet to the chief guests! How
atrocious can we get? How
then the artistes explain their spiritual flight
while performing on stage?
If you are so spiritually uplifted, would you
care who has come and who
hasn't?"
- Subbudu in 'Patronising the patrons'
- Statesman, June 3, 2005 |
|
"The language is
different but the sameness of the message
through the length and breadth
of the country shows that it is our poets and
music composers who have
really united the country into one. Politics has
always created diverse
feelings with people being treated as vote banks
and spoken to in different
groups. But it is the literature and music of
the country that have created
bonds."
Leela Venkataraman
(Nartanam, Vol IV #3, p71-72, July-Sept
2004) |
|
"We have to lament
that in today's world of marketing and commerce,
we have reached a nadir
where the dancer has almost no space, either
physical or metaphorical.
The dancer simply has no product to market (no
CDs and cassettes like the
musician or instrumentalist, no painting or
sculpture like the artist,
no buildings or plans like the architect, no
books like the authors and
poets) except the ability to create an
intangible art form which springs
alive only for that moment, and then,
evanescent, fades from all existence,
except in memory. And memory cannot be marketed.
Hence it is that all the related
industries that have cropped up to market the
other arts, like galleries,
publishing houses, ad agencies, music companies
with sales planets and
even galaxies, have no equivalents for dance
simply because the dancer
and the dance have no commercial value."
- Geeta Chandran ('World Dance Day'
Asian Age, Kolkata April 29, 2005) |
|
"Dance, like music,
knows no geographical boundaries, no linguistic
barriers and no racial
divisions. All walls crumble where art is
concerned. It is a great
unifying and integrating force."
- Vempatti Chinna Satyam
(Nartanam Vol IV #3, p46, July-Sept
2004) |
|
"My experience with
dancers has been very peculiar. They generally
like a studio photo shoot
before their actual performances. I sometimes
wonder how they are more
careful about their costumes during the shoot. It
is interesting to see
them adjust to their surroundings to get the best
shots, they would get
restless, put music on to give the best poses. The
same evening you see
them so involved in their art form, oblivious of
costumes and makeup."
Avinash Pascricha, photographer
("Rhythm at my feet," Pioneer, New
Delhi, April 29, 2005) |
|
There is no denying
that some critics have let power go to their
heads. One of them declared,
"When I wish to annihilate, then I do
annihilate." But, as may be expected,
the artist has the last word. Liberace, the
popular American musician,
told his critics: "What you said hurt me very
much. I cried all the way
to the bank." And John Sibelius, the eminent
composer, said, "I pay no
attention to what critics say. There has never
been a statue set up in
honor of a critic."
- H.Y. Sharada Prasad, 'The artist
and the critic'
(Asian Age, Editorial Page, 6th
April 2005) |
|
If you wish in this
world to advance
Your merits you're bound to enhance;
You must stir it and stump it,
And blow your own trumpet,
Or, trust me, you haven't a chance
- W S Gilbert |
|
"The rasika is one
who takes pains to sit through concerts, has a
sense of appreciation, can
discriminate between cadence and noise, melody
and cacophony, natural grace
and mere drill, genuine feeling and robotic
expressions of face, gait and
stance, and rich profundity and brash mediocrity
of ethos. He need not
be well versed in ragas and their lakshanas,
mudras and adavus or the more
mysterious nadais, eduppus, sollus, jatis and
teermanams. Aesthetics is
not academics. Let not the average audience hand
over the authority to
distinguish between creativity and monstrosity
only to illustrious celebrities
and learned critics. The rasika is the judge,
and his language is probably
silence, at best. Let a few mind boggling,
mindless swara-korvais, devoid
of any melodic values, gigantic in their scheme,
pass without a murmur
or a resounding applause, let the audience show
by face its disappointment
at a kriti being sidelined to give way to a
singer's exercises practiced
at home, let a vague presentation in a dance,
whose meaning is not clear
to a rasika pass without claps – and then we
would be seeing producers
of art taking a serious view and start
exercising their imagination properly."
P S Krishnamurthy
(The ball is in the rasika's court,
The Hindu, Dec 1, 2004) |
|
"Thinking is easy
but acting is difficult and to put one's
thoughts into action is the most
difficult thing in the world"
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
|
"Dance criticism
is necessary for the life of a nation's cultural
heritage and for the inculcation
of love and appreciation for the arts in the
younger generation. In the
absence of checks and balances, the art, which
is ephemeral, suffers since
it vanishes the moment it is created in space
and time."
- Sunil Kothari
(DCA News, Spring 2004, p11) |
|
"There is a general
decline of taste for classical dance, which is
neglected and this must
be developed from the grassroots. There is so
much of razzle-dazzle of
Bollywood dancing that classical dance suffers.
Also, the stumbling block
is Bharata Natyam - it is the language that is
not emotionally evolved.
Kerala has one peculiar phenomenon:
each girl learns Bharata Natyam, Kuchipudi,
Mohiniattam, and they just
take part in inter-university competitions, and
that's all. There is no
seriousness.
We have more students for Bharata
Natyam. When I ask them why they want to learn
it, they reply: because
Hema Malini dances Bharata Natyam."
- Kanak Rele, ('My eroticism is
not offensive', Statesman, Kolkata, Oct 29, 2004) |
|
"In seeking wisdom,
the first stage is silence, the second
listening, the third remembrance,
the 4th practicing, the fifth teaching."
- Solomon Ibn Gabiro |
|
"The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable
one persists in trying to
adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable
man."
- George Bernard Shaw |
|
"Solo performance
has the key to the strength of classical dances
like Odissi and Bharatanatyam.
Group work is very fashionable now, but the
tapasya of the artists does
not show in them. Group choreographies are fine,
but they should not be
done at the cost of solo performance, because
the artist's ability to hold
the attention of the audience and delineate a
subject comes through only
in a solo."
- Sonal Mansingh |
|
"Varnam or Nrityopahaaram
(an offering of dance and mime) is the judicious
combination of Nritta,
Nritya and Naatya, expounding the deep-rooted
technique of physical, mental
and spiritual background of Bharatanaatyam. This
can be termed as the quintessence
or epitome of a technique that has withstood the
test of time.
The construction of the present
day 'Varnam' format in a solo Bharatanaatyam
performance has the
time and space for a dancer to exploit her or
his technical virtuosity
and keep the attentive interest of the audience,
irrespective of the length
of delineation, whether it is for 30 minutes or
60 minutes or more.
The success and failure of a Bharatanaatyam
artiste depend on how well one could perform a
'Nrityoopahaaram' to the
fullest satisfaction of a discerning connoisseur
audience."
- V P Dhananjayan |
|
"More needs to be
done about changing the entire infrastructure
that preserves culture. I'm
not talking of just dance; it's an inter-related
web of relationships.
Monuments, conservation, nature, ecology, music,
dance, food – all are
interrelated. I think all of this is culture."
- Swapnasundari ('Her Story', First
City, Sept 2004) |
|
"A true master is
not the one with the most students, but one who
creates the most masters.
A true leader is not the one with the most
followers, but one who creates
the most leaders. A true king is not the one
with the most subjects, but
the one who leads the most to royalty."
- Neale Donald Walsch in Conversations
with God. (The Speaking Tree, Times of India, Nov
16, 2004) |
|
"No artist is ahead
of his time. He is his time; it is just that
others are behind the times."
- Martha Graham |
|
"The really great
dancer is perhaps a rarer phenomenon than great
musicians, painters or
sculptors. This is because dance is a
consummation of all these arts. The
dancer, in addition to the qualities that pure
dance demands, must be sensitive
to and have an uncanny ear for music, must have
a painter's sensibility
to the significant line, a sculptor's approach
to form, an architect's
vision of space and a trained actor's responses
to dramatic situations."
- K Subhas Chandran ('Beloved Guruji'-
p3) |
|
"Dialogue between
critics and dancers is essential, not only for
the flourishing of the art
but also for the flourishing of our society.
Let's remember that civilizations
are not remembered for the territories they have
conquered, or the wars
they have won or lost, but for the manner in
which they supported and recognized
their artists."
- Rita Feliciano
(DCA News, Spring 2004, p10) |
|
"The real self of
an artiste lies in art, so when an artiste
performs, all the pain, trauma
and tension get released through art, be it
dancing, painting, singing,
writing or even martial arts."
- Mrinalini Sarabhai
("Dance, a great stress buster,"
Tribune, New Delhi, July 12, 2004) |
|
"For an artiste,
the place in the audience's heart and in the
history of the art form itself
is the greatest honor. Only genuine caliber and
nothing else could buy
this."
- Kalamandalam Gopi, Kathakali maestro
("Lifelong Endeavor" by K K Gopalakrishnan,
The Hindu - Delhi, March 7, 2004) |
|
"A dancer should
learn from all the arts. Go to museums and look
at the paintings. See how
they balance things. Everything you do in the
arts enriches you."
- Alicia Alonso
('Alonso inspires' by Karen Hildebrand,
p 25, Dance Magazine, Jan 2004) |
|
"Man has used human
rhythmic movement as raw material out of which
to create works of art,
as the composer of music uses sound, the
sculptor uses stone and wood,
the painter his pigments, and the writer –
words.''
- Ted Shawn |
|
"It's true of all
great artists that the more you see, the more
you want to see"
- Peter Anastos – choreographer
('Balanchine Lives,' p 93, Dance
Magazine, Jan 2004) |
|
"You should be very
contemporary in dealing with tradition. Don't
keep tradition as a tradition,
but as a contemporary art."
- G Venu (p36, Nuances, First City,
Jan 2004) |
|
"When drama is all
embracing, it leads mankind. It is a means of
education and instruction.
It gives relief to the lucky and the unlucky, to
the successful and the
unsuccessful, to the joyful and the suffering.
Those who are in the shadow
are treated the same as those who are in the
light. Drama is an image
of the world and a vision of the supreme powers.
Hence a theatrical performance
should not be held without worshipping the
deities of the stage.
Thus the sacred wisdom of the Natya Sastra."
(p 207, "Rupa Pratirupa Alica Boner
Commemoration Volume" chapter 'Is acting an art?'
by Georgette Boner) |
|
"There is no difference
between the left eye and the right eye, they
both give us one vision. Likewise
with dance, the personalities are very different
but they give you the
totality of one emotional and artistic
expression".
- Sonal Mansingh
("Roll up the carpet," Indian Express
Mumbai, Nov 13, 2003) |
|
"A dance legacy must
be performed in order to be preserved"
- Ann Daly, in DCA News Spring 2000 |
|
"Good art is a form
of prayer. It's a way to say what is not
sayable."
- Frederich Busch |
|
"I like to think
dance is an international language that all
people can appreciate. All
societies have some form of dance as a form of
communication."
- Paul Taylor (American choreographer)
(Newsweek, July 28, 2003) |
|
"We enter through
the gopuram (center hall) of alarippu, cross the
ardha mandapam (1/2 way
hall) of jatiswaram, then the mandapam (great
hall) of sabdam and enter
the holy precinct of the deity in the varnam".
-T. Balasaraswathi 1975
At the Tamil Isai Conference |
|
The self is the ocean,
the mind is a wave and thoughts are the sparkles
on the waves.
- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar |
|
Culture is the ability
to understand other people's point of view.
- Jawaharlal Nehru |
|
Art is the most secular
of all human inventions; it reaches out to human
hearts beyond man made
artificial barriers of color, creed and
political boundaries.
- Dr. R Sathyanarayana |
|
"The sensitive artiste
develops the "hearing ear" and the 'seeing eye"
which forever lead one
to seek search, making one's entire life a
voyage of discovery".
- Chitra Visweswaran |
|
"Dance has to unfold
with the grace of a tree giving out leaves,
flowers and then tiny fruit.
Nothing so beautiful can be done in haste".
- Pt. Birju Maharaj |
|
"There is no other
knowledge, no other learning, no other art, not
even yoga or action that
is not found in dance."
- Natya Sastra |
|
Dance is the medium
that ties together modern cultures with those
that are
fading, and a form that appeals
to both the wealthy and the poor.
- Madeline Nichols
(courtesy DCA News) |
|
"Education in the
art of dance is education of the whole man - his
physical, mental and emotional
natures are disciplined and nourished
simultaneously in dance."
- Ted Shawn |
|
"Contrary to conventional
wisdom, dance is not a universal "language' but
many languages and dialects.
There are close to 6000 verbal languages, and
probably that many dance
languages."
- Judith Lynne Hanna
(Courtesy DCA News) |
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"Dance is like wine
- it matures with every performance."
-Alarmel Valli |
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"A dance performance
is rather like going out into a battlefield. You
have to hold the attention
of as many as five to 10,000 people, a lot of
whom do not follow your language"
- Yamini Krishnamurthy |
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"The artist is nothing
without the gift, but the gift is nothing
without work."
- Emile Zola (1840-1902) |
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"Dance, like music
and other arts, helps us rise above the beast in
ourselves."
- Sudharani Raghupathy |
|
"Dance communicates
man's deepest, highest and most truly spiritual
thoughts and emotions far
better than words, spoken or written."
- Ted Shawn |
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"The higher up you
go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at
the top, if you make enough
of them, it's considered to be your style."
- Fred Astaire |
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"Art is not what
you see, but what you make others see."
- Edgar Degas |
|
"When you are trying
to serve society in any way,
you have to experience what they
call the inner loneliness.
It comes from the fact that you
don't do what people expect you to do.
All the time you do things differently
and that is why you are what you are."
- Nelson Mandela |
|
"I am simple and
I am sincere, therefore my art is from my
heart."
- Pina Bausch |
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"I do believe the
body is the center of your being, center of your
world.
And you, after all, are the centre
that holds the universe together."
- Chandralekha |
|
"Our problem is not
so much one of rebirth of an Indian culture as
it is one of preserving
what remains of it. Indian culture is of value
to us not because it is
Indian, but because it is culture."
- Ananda Coomaraswamy |
|
"My dancing is not
an attempt to interpret life in the literary
sense. It is an affirmation
of life through movement."
- Martha Graham |
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"Whither the hand
goes, the glance follows,
Whither the glances lead, the
mind follows,
Whither the mind goes, there
the mood follows
Whither the mood goes, there
is "rasa" born."
- Abhinaya Darpana |
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