You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams.
Things danced on the screen do not look the way they do on the stage. On the stage, dancing is three-dimensional, but a motion picture is two-dimensional.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the difference between live performance and film, highlighting the unique qualities of each medium.
Gene Kelly's quote reflects on the distinct nature of dance as performed on stage compared to its representation in film. While stage performances provide a three-dimensional experience that captures the nuances of movement and expression from multiple perspectives, film presents dance in a two-dimensional format that cannot fully convey the depth and immediacy of live performances. This observation underscores the inherent limitations and strengths of each art form, suggesting that both have their unique beauty and impact.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on the differences between film and theater, this quote can highlight the unique aspects of live performances.
More from Gene Kelly
All quotes βI wanted to invent some kind of American dance that was danced to the music that I grew up on: Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart and Irving Berlin. So I evolved a style that certainly didn't catch on right away - but I had some good mentors in New York who encouraged me.
At 14 I discovered girls. At that time dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship.
My mother had gotten a job as a receptionist at a dancing school and had the idea that we should open our own dancing school; we did, and it prospered.
There is a strange sort of reasoning in Hollywood that musicals are less worthy of Academy consideration than dramas. It's a form of snobbism, the same sort that perpetuates the idea that drama is more deserving of Awards than comedy.
Similar quotes
Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn't miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.
I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.
There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it.
A living is made, Mr Kemper, by selling something that everybody needs at least once a year.Yes, sir! And a million ismade by producing something that everybody needs every day.You artists produce something that nobody needs at any time.
You don't find a style. A style finds you
I feel like I'm a natural-born playwright, but the prose thing has always mystified me. How to keep it going? How do people do it, for years and years?