Twyla Tharp Quotes

I am dancing all the time. Every gesture, the body line of every pose, the way I get from place to place, the movement in the acting - none of it would be the way it is if I weren't a dancer.

It's one of my strongest dance pieces - having just done Play Without Words which was veering away from a lot of dance - I thought it would be nice to go back to something with almost the most dance I'd done.

You have an awareness of your body and how to use it and I think that if you can embody a character physically it's another really useful tool.

Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.

I've always believed that the facts about dancing are more interesting than the myths, and this was a great chance for me to explore how the human body does such incredible things.

There are times when I consciously give the character something physical - a walk, the way he sits, how he talks, or his lack of physicality, which is like a physicality.

I never studied dance, but if you look at 'Wild At Heart,' my mother saw that movie and said, 'You are a dancer. Look at how you're moving: all that strange energy is like modern dance.'

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.

I've been working on it a lot, trying to find the artistic balance, trying to find purpose in my movement combined with the jumps.

You learn to control every aspect of your muscles, your face, your toes, your fingernails. And that is how you tell a story, through movement.

When eventually I started to act a bit more, I realised that circus school had taught me something that a lot of actors my age didn't have: physicality. They didn't know how to move. Acting is not all about talking. There is something animalistic about it.

My background is in modern dance. I was a dancer and a choreographer before I was a director, and in dance, you can't cheat. Your leg goes up in the air, or it doesn't. So when I direct, I'm a big preparer.

My mother was a dancer, so I like to use the body as part of the instrument of acting.

For me, purity of movement wasn't enough. I needed expression, more intensity, more mind.

I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.

My body can't demonstrate. It isn't willing to explore movements the way it used to. I've always had to find the movement in myself then show it in myself. If I've got the sense of movement for the character, I expect the dancer to get it too.

Acting is a total physical, emotional sensation.

I'm very kinesthetic, and when you're that way, you just feel it in your body. I know that other actors think with the logical part of their brain, but I wear my character inside my body, even when I'm away from the set.

You're being cast for your acting ability. It's not based on the way your body functions. If you're playing a lead in a movie, it's for that character and they'll tailor it to you. In a dance company, you have to fit in a definite mold.

Action choreographer is like talking. When you talk, you have a rhythm. When you act, you have a rhythm. When you're moving your body, you have a rhythm. So as an actor, as a choreographer, the objective is trying to blend everything in - into - ultimately back into that character.

Sometimes I say I feel more like a dancer than an actor, because there are things implied about being an actor that I don't really like. I feel more comfortable with the word 'performer'. I like being the thing. I like being the doer. There's a factualness to it. And then certain resonances happen out of how you apply yourself physically.

Accents are very easy for me. With me, it's clothing and makeup and hair and all that stuff that inform how the character moves and feels.

A lot can be said with just a look, or the way the body moves. Each song is a different character. So each song takes on a different movement of the body. And the body has to go with the subject and the attitude that you have toward that subject.

Dancers carry themselves in completely different ways to how we do in our everyday lives. They are very free with their bodies which I'm not used too.

When I was a dancer, I was acting.