Artistic Leadership Quotes

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

The thing is, I think as a director or a writer or whatever, you have to have a vision. And you have to be maybe sometimes too early, somewhere.

Every now and then I have to teach directing. The thing about the theatre is that the most important thing you can do as a director is to make sure that everybody is in the same world - you have to create the world and make sure everyone buys into it.

The conductor is the artistic leader and sometimes cultural arbiter of his or her community. It is their leadership that is looked to and should anything go wrong, they are the persons taking most of the heat.

Successful artists don't follow trends; they create them.

All great directors - however, they do it - make you want to be good. I hope I do it. It's like being a parent, a psychiatrist, a disciplinarian and a friend.

As an artist, I have to be a leader of my fans, not, like, follow them. Because if I chose to follow them, you know, they could do it. You know, it's me who's doing it.

As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers.

If you follow the lead of the artists, they will take you places that you could never go on your own.

I'd love to direct a film, but I don't think I have the temperament for it. I'm very hyper, and I want things to be done ASAP. If I turn director, I might end up killing my actors.

Become the director, producer, choreographer of your own story

Artists look at the environment, and the best artists correctly diagnose the problem. I'm not saying artists can't be leaders, but that's not the job of art, to lead. Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Harry Belafonte - there are artists all through history who have become leaders, but that was already in them, nothing to do with their art.

In 2007, when my husband Damian Woetzel took on the artistic direction at the Vail Valley International Dance Festival, we both felt it was important to offer the entire Vail community access to dance.

I think the best directors rarely lose their temper.

When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.

I'm wary of artistic directors who say, 'Here is my vision', because it's empirical. Basically it's about who you work with and what plays you put on; the vision comes out of that.

The industry needs to be run by artists, because we are the only people that care about art.

We were the only band in history that was directed by an ass.

I learned in my early years in the theater that I would never become the guy on top. I'll never create a show; I don't have a brain expansive enough to see the whole picture, in a way that would behoove anyone.

I see myself and many artists like me as the torchbearers through these dark ages.

I have a pathetic urge at some stage in my life to be able to pull out my wallet and pull out a little card on which it would say, 'Kenneth Branagh, artistic director.'

I am both proud and honored to be on the Board of Directors for the Texas Ballet Theater.

I saw my potential as artistic director, which is very different from designer. Fashion companies might have $200 million to $300 million in annual sales - Hugo Boss has €2.5 billion. I have to create a world that is believable and also relevant in 7,000 sales points around the world.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

There ought to be an absolute dictatorship... a dictatorship of painters... a dictatorship of one painter... to suppress all those who have betrayed us.