Katherine Dunham Quotes

Those 25 dancers we worked with for a day, in as highly productive a way as possible - a long class, a period of teaching bits of the repertory - in fact I didn't teach Bank, I've used parts of Oil and Water.

While dancing for me was fun, becoming a choreographer was not something I wanted to do.

I try and create choreography that's in conversation with the music that the audience is hearing.

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays.

You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language.

I look at the dancers and I get the inspiration for the work from them.

I was a late bloomer, but I had a career as a contemporary dancer before that, so I had some kind of connection to this world. But I was always a little more in love with the drama of dancing than the aesthetics, so I thought, 'Why don't you give it a chance if you think you can do it a little different?'

Choreographers, historically, are born, not made - their talents drive them to it.

I had always choreographed a little, beginning in high school. And I leaned toward choreography. I always had an overview of what was going on.

I'm very smart when it comes to choosing dancers and trying to show the world that there's a whole lot of dancing going on.

I used to say I didn't want to teach. I was still excited about dancing. It's hard to do both. It's as exhausting teaching as it is to dance.

At 11, I went to Misha's school for two summers. So when I wasn't in that school, I was taking classes at David Howard or Robert Denver's studios - kind of legendary places - and there was one summer where Alexander Godunov sort of took me under his wing; the memory's a little murky, but I felt as if I was his project for those weeks.

I was always the kid down the street who got the other kids to put on a show. But it was only when I was 19, and discovered ballet and contemporary dance, that I got interested in the fact that you could have a whole evening of dance - rather than just waiting for the dancers in a musical.

In 'The One Who Falls,' three women and three men, in everyday clothes, negotiate each other while moving, often in unison, on a giant spinning tile.

For me, the choreography always comes from the music.

I was associated with Shaimak Davar for three and a half years and learnt a lot from him.

Dance was something I'd just done at my youth club, and I used to teach dance when I was 14 to 19, 20 years old. I had my own dance group, and then I got more into the acting stuff, and I started doing things for TV. And then I put that on pause, because I really wanted to focus on my real passion, which is music.

I have some rhythm, but I definitely learned a lot from Jamal Sims and Spencer Henderson.

I will never leave choreography and will keep doing songs, too.

While I love dancing, and even acting in 'ABCD' - 'Anybody Can Dance' - was fun, I remain, at heart, a choreographer.

I'm trying to create ballets that I would enjoy seeing.

I've always thought of the process of creating ballets as being this kind of team effort. It's not like being a painter, where you have your paint, and you have canvas, and you just go at it. I'm working with these living, breathing, functioning human beings, and they have their own thoughts and ideas about what works well movement-wise.

But there is a world of difference between dancing and watching a dance performed by a group of professionals who are paid for it. You work hard during the day, and when you are tired in the evening you go to a concert to watch others dancing. It is all you can do, but it is not even an apology for celebration.

I grew up studying dance, taking ballet lessons.

I announced at the dinner table when I was 11 that I wanted to be a ballet dancer. But my goal changed to musical theater after the choreographer Robert Joffrey saw me perform while I was on scholarship at the San Francisco Ballet School.