David Harewood Quotes

Music and language are a vital element. We, as actors and directors, offer it to people who want to experience it. Sometimes the actual meaning is less important than the words themselves.

The fact is that great musical pieces take and hold the stage because they provide great emotional experiences.

I often envy a filmmaker or a playwright or an author where people are like, "Yeah, I sat down every night and read your book and it was beautiful." Or, "Yeah, I went to the movies and all I did was watch the movie because that's all you could do at the movies." Where with music, it's like, "Ugh, I love your music. I listen to it while I'm jogging thinking about how I hate my body." But it is also the privilege of being a musician is you can have your music in this documented form and play it live and that's, I think, what draws me to it the most.

The best part of touring, still, is touching people's hearts and igniting my band and igniting the people into what you call a spiritual revelation is sound and emotion.

That's one of the good things about music. You get to do it live, where you can touch the people and interact with them.

We want people to experience art and think about it. The art reflects our time, it is about our culture.

Opera is complex for those who perform it, but also for those who listen to it. It takes more time, more patience and more spirit of sacrifice. All this is well worth it because opera offers such deep sensations that they will remain in a heart for a lifetime.

I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.

Music is the same to me as it was to Goethe - a pleasant noise. I am an eye man, not an ear man.

Opera was the cinema of its time, so to bring back that popular appeal, you just need to unleash its visceral immediacy and excitement. Most productions don't manage that - but when an opera does do it, you never forget it.

I saw Tina Turner do 'Proud Mary' on TV, and it was so electrifying and such a unique experience. I remember crying out of excitement, and I knew that I wanted to be a performer and make people feel excited and moved, and that's why I gravitated towards it.

Performing is a profound experience, at least for me.

I just like art. I get pure pleasure from it. I have a lot of wonderful paintings, and every time I look at them I see something different.

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

There's a romance and power to live theater.

I don't want people to look back at my matches and say, 'When you did that move, it was good, and I liked it because it was cool.' I want people to sort of remember a rush of images and the emotion that they felt when they saw it. That's when I think you have a real masterpiece in your hands.

The greatest feeling in the world is performing and connecting with the audience.

For someone like me, music is all I've ever thought about - playing big shows, and then, when you take something that is based around your music and put it in a completely different medium, it's a really interesting and cool emotion to watch.

Main thing, really, is I write songs the way I wanna hear them and the way I think the people that come to our shows wanna hear them.

I don't enjoy art.

The performance of Carnatic music is multi-dimensional and layered. A performance is at once an artiste's cathartic process of personal exploration and an open energy exchange with the audience: a release and a conversation.

Sometimes we do derive some entertainment when we 'appreciate' something, and sometime we feel something when we're moved. So a lot of game makers want challenge themselves with 'can I move someone?' or 'can I get them to respect me as an artist?'

For me, it’s like playing the same instrument but in a different context. TV work – it’s really about getting it just right. You have a chance to try again if it’s not. Theatre is like playing a rock show. It doesn’t really matter if you make a tiny mistake. It’s the whole vibe and getting people to feel you. It’s about carrying the moment through all the way with you in an hour and 20 minutes of the narrative.

My work is immaterial. It's not painting, it's not sculpture, it's emotions. I'm giving you something to experience yourself.