Dance Composition Quotes

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

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.

I love doing concert choreography because everything is about your vision, come heck or high water. Of course, you also take the blame for everything, but it's wonderful to be able to make up dance for dance's sake.

I can always invent movement, and sometimes it can be fitted into the right place, but that is not choreography. It is the music that dictates the whole shape of the work. I do not believe in the permanence of anything in ballet save the purely classical.

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.

There's an innate feeling when I choreograph in juxtaposition to how I feel as a dancer. When I choreograph, I never really look into the mirror. But as dancers, we always check ourselves in the mirror. I do feel that when I choreograph, I am making a dance on my own body. Much of it is my own response to the music.

My philosophy on choreography is that the making of a ballet is a team effort, and we're in this together. It's not me hammering on them. It's more about how we can elevate this piece collectively to something great.

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.

For me, the choreography always comes from the music.

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

When I started off as a choreographer, I had to do songs, which I may have wanted to do differently, but directors had their own inputs to give. But now, I take liberty to decide my own dance steps as well.

Unlike a lot of choreographers, I don't always start with the music. I often start with a visual artist, and then find music that fits the world of that visual artist.

Honestly, I am so ignorant of how dance works that I can't even imagine a story that you would want to tell through movement.

A lot of the time, when I'm choreographing, I'm not thinking about what movement look best next to the next movement - I'm actually thinking about what song and what sound sounds right next to the next thing. So kind of choreographing as if I'm always making a mix tape, so to speak.

When I would create a dance, I wouldn't have the luxury that ballet people do when they take a piece of music and impose a dance upon it. What we did in motion pictures was have a song and within that song try to elaborate. My usual method was to do what a writer does: get a plot.

Merce is my favorite artist in any field.

I've made storylines through dance to complement the music. It's all about enhancing the singing and acting. It's been an amazing learning curve for me.

Making dances is an act of progress; it is an act of growth, an act of music, an act of teaching, an act of celebration, an act of joy.

'The Company' was interesting. I didn't love it, although it might be compelling to someone who isn't a dancer. There wasn't a lot of dialogue, and you were just kind of observing the creative process of choreography and in class.

I would love to compose something for dance before I kick the bucket, and I'm not closed-minded about the dance, or the dance company. I would really just love to collaborate on that.

Choreography is writing on your feet.

Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays.

We know how Merce Cunningham works and how he thinks - we've been told, over and over again, by him and by others.

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

Choreography is mentally draining, but there's a pleasure in getting into the studio with the dancers and the music.