Nikos Kazantzakis Quotes

Movement is expressive. I've never denied that. I don't think there's such a thing as abstract dance.

Hence it is from the representation of things spoken by means of posture and gesture that the whole of the art of dance has been elaborated.

But remember that intent is everything. One does not just jump, one lifts into the air, one rises. In the same way the lifted leg of an arabesque becomes a wing, and not a mechanical leverage like a raised trap door. This is the precise difference between dancing and acrobatics. The dancer tries to express something; the acrobat merely pulls, raises, stretches and grinds. The acrobat is lost in a web of muscles the dancer is all but invisible in projected idea.

I explained it when I danced it.

I love physical movement. Dance was my favorite thing, and I was a gymnast. I find that expression through movement is easier, in some ways, than expression through words.

I think you translate emotion better when you take your hands off.

My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

Dancing is like - it's another way of communicating, no?

I am more expressive when I dance.

Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.

I have such a respect and fascination for dance. I can be light as air or stay grounded. Dance is really another universe.

When movement becomes ecstatic, then this is dance. When the movement is so total there is no ego, then it is dance.

Nothing so clearly and inevitably reveals the inner man than movement and gesture. It is quite possible, if one chooses, to conceal and dissimulate behind words or paintings or statues or other forms of human expression, but the moment you move you stand revealed, for good or ill, for what you are.

I loved to dance because I was scared to speak. When I was moving, I could feel.

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.

when dancing is right, the movement possesss a logic common to us all, an inevitability that takes it beyond the personal and egocentric and makes of it classical art.

As unnatural as dancing is, you have to find a natural way to do the unnatural.

The things one can express with the hand, with the head, with the shoulders!... How many useless and encumbering words then disappear! What economy!

dance is simply the refinement of human movement - walking, running, and jumping. We are all experts. There should be no art form more accessible than dance, yet no art is more mystifying in the public imagination.

All due respect, and trying to be as modest as I can be: I am a dancer.

I describe things in terms of body movements. I dance a bit to describe what sort of movement it ought to make, and that's a good way of talking to musicians. Particularly bass players.

Sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them.

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.

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.

If I can not dance, I shall die!