Everything is raw material. Everything is relevant. Everything is usable. Everything feeds into my creativity. But without proper preparation, I cannot see it, retain it, and use it.
Interpretation
Creativity thrives on the material around us, but requires preparation to harness that potential.
In this quote, Twyla Tharp emphasizes the importance of recognizing the creative potential in everything around us. She highlights that while all experiences and materials can contribute to one's creativity, without proper preparation and the ability to fully engage with them, these elements may go unnoticed and unutilized.
In practice
In an art workshop, to inspire students to embrace all forms of creative input.
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 am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
I wake up every morning, and I go to ballet class no matter what's going on the night before. That's my priority, and that's what makes me feel sane and not removed from the realities of my world.
I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do.
Drag, at its core, is about honoring yourself and your own unique way of being a gendered, queer person. Your own unique way of using fashion to express yourself.
On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.
Each character I play has different dimensions. I'm not interested in words that pull them together.
Writing is the same as music. Itβs in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you donβt play is as important as what you do say.
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