Merce Cunningham Quotes

I told the students that whatever they did in class was for the wastebasket.

Anyone who teaches knows that you don't really experience a text until you've taught it, in loving detail, with an intelligent and responsive class.

Coach Reid is a great teacher. He understands how people learn, understands how to get people to get the concept of what the play is and why we're running it.

I have trained, but not really that much professionally. But 'ABCD2' has been the biggest training ground. I've been exposed to and learnt so many dance forms through this film.

I don't think there is anything new left for me in choreography.

I taught and studied dance in college, and for over a decade, I thought that would be my career: tap dancer, ballet dancer, modern dancer. I still find myself doing some tumbling or interpretive dancing in the grocery store every now and then.

Education is taken for granted. Teaching shops are different from building character.

I grew up going to see my sister dance, both at the ballet and later as a modern dancer, and have always been a big fan of the ballet. So I have had a long relationship with dance.

My aesthetic is, in short, 'cool substitute teacher.'

In theatre or in ballet, the ballerina always passes on what they know. It's a hands-on craft. You can't really learn the soul and the pathos of it if you just see a video. It has to be taught by someone who is in the know.

So many people think of me as a character on TV, but first and foremost, my passion is teaching dance and creating employable, working dancers.

I wanted to be a professional dancer my whole life.

I really love teaching; I was actually studying to be a preschool teacher.

I was singing R&B songs, listening to Boyz II Men, and I wanted to take dance classes, but I waited until my senior year of high school to take my very first dance class.

I'm a good teacher and am great at observation and picking out what's wrong and fixing it.

I've never looked at what I do as show business, I guess, because of my connection to the art and how I was introduced to the dance.

The only job that ever really worked for me was teaching because you are your own master once you get into the room. You just have to show up on time and talk about what you care about.

I was an appalling person to teach. At 14, I was pretty advanced. I would read all the books in a few minutes, and I was bored. It must have been awful for a teacher to have a bright boy who's giving them his undivided indifference.

Teachers know how to improve education.

I was a PE teacher, and when you teach, you can say, 'You have to do this.' It's an order. That's one way. Or you can say, 'Listen, we have these problems, so give me the solution,' and they have to think about it. Or you can say, 'Here are three options - which one is best?'

A classroom setting for me was an audience.

To be clear, people are the most important part of any classroom. If given the choice between a great teacher and the world's most advanced education technology, I'd pick the teacher any day for my own children.

Working with a new style of choreography is always a period of adaptation.

If you want to be able to teach, then you need to listen - a lot.

It's every teacher's job to be rigorous about constantly being open to new ideas and innovation.