The body says what words cannot.
Martha GrahamRead
I don't think in art there is ever a precedent; each moment is a new one and terrifying and threatening and bursting with hope.
Interpretation
Each artistic moment is unique and filled with both challenges and possibilities.
Martha Graham emphasizes the idea that in art, every moment presents a fresh and daunting opportunity. She suggests that instead of relying on past examples or precedents, artists should embrace the uncertainty and excitement of creating something new, which is filled with potential hope and inspiration.
In practice
In an art class, while discussing the value of originality, I shared this quote to encourage students to embrace their own creative journeys.
The body says what words cannot.
Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it.
What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.
No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a strange, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.
The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.
Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
The first thing you have to get used to in any kind of acting is the ability to make a fool of yourself. If you haven't learnt how to make a fool of yourself, you shouldn't be on the boards. That's absolutely what it's all about.
I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience. That's why I also believe in reincarnation, that we were put here with ideas to pass around.
Cookery is a wholly unselfish art: as 'art for art's sake' it is unthinkable. A man may sing in his bath every morning without the least encouragement, but no cook can cook just for his or her own sake in a like manner. All good cooks, like all great artists, must have an audience worth cooking for.
A movie is made for an audience and a film is made for both the audience and the film-makers. I think that The Game is a movie and I think Fight Club's a film. I think that Fight Club is more than the sum of its parts, whereas Panic Room is the sum of its parts. I didn't look at Panic Room and think, "Wow, this is gonna set the world on fire". These are footnote movies, guilty pleasure movies. Thrillers. Woman-trapped-in-a-house movies. They're not particularly important.
In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.
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