The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.
Interpretation
The essence of a culture is reflected through its artistic expressions like dance and music.
Agnes De Mille's quote emphasizes that the authentic and deepest expressions of a community are showcased through their dances and music. These art forms transcend words, revealing emotions, stories, and truths that may not be easily articulated, highlighting the sincerity of human experience and connection.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of cultural heritage, one might say, 'As Agnes De Mille once said, 'The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music.'
Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat. It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything, so that we will miss nothing. Partly it's greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.
Ballet technique never becomes easy, it becomes possible
To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.
We can't stand silence, because silence induces thinking. And if we thought, we would have to face ourselves.
Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.
I'm absolutely removed from the world at such times...The hours go by without my knowing it. Sitting there I'm wandering in countries I can see every detail of - I'm playing a role in the story I'm reading. I actually feel I'm the characters - I live and breath with them.
By the end, you should be inside your character, actually operating from within somebody else, and knowing him pretty well, as that person knows himself or herself. You're sort of a predator, an invader of people.
I'm afraid that the act of writing is so scary and anxiety-filled that I never laugh at all. In fact, when people tell me that such and such a scene or story is comical, I tend to gape. I did not intend comedy - ever, as far as I know. It's probably all a mistake. I am essentially a lugubrious writer. Ha ha!
You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul.
I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look.
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