Modern Dance Quotes

As a Newbody, however, I began to like the pornographic circus of rough sex; the stuff that resembled some of the modern dance I had seen, animalistic, without talk. I begged to be turned into meat, held down, tied, blindfolded, slapped, pulled and strangled, entirely merged in the physical, all my swirling selves sucked into orgasm. ~ Hanif Kureishi

I never studied dance, but if you look at 'Wild At Heart,' my mother saw that movie and said, 'You are a dancer. Look at how you're moving: all that strange energy is like modern dance.' ~ Nicolas Cage

The eternal and uneasy relationship between ballet and modern dance endures, but radically altered in tone and intensity. ~ Robert Gottlieb

Modern dance isn't anything except one thing in my mind: the freedom of women in America. ~ Martha Graham

Sergio Trujillos choreography adds coals to the inferno, with movement that plain just doesnt stop. We know from Jersey Boys that he can capture this style, but in Memphis, he kicks it up towards art, playing with the authentic touches to add some hits of Fosse, or riffs from modern dance that take us just that extra step we need. ~ Richard Ouzounian

I had art as a major, along with English, French and History. I had dance, modern dance. In English I was allowed to write my own poetry, which I eventually got published. ~ Sally Kirkland

I would have to challenge the term, modern dance. I don't really use that term in relation to my work. I simply think of it as dancing. I think of it as moving. ~ Twyla Tharp

DJing for people is fun until someone comes up with a phone screen that has 'PLAY SOME RIHANNA' written on it. I prefer to play older songs because they're the ones I personally enjoy dancing and singing along to and modern dance music bores my brains out. ~ Alexa Chung

A lot of people insisted on a wall between modern dance and ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things. ~ Twyla Tharp

Pretend mic in hand, she danced into the bedroom, singing Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy." She executed a few dance steps she'd read about in books on modern dance. Losing herself to the groove of the music, she swayed and gyrated as she belted out the lyrics. She toed off her shoes and shimmied out of her jeans, bending to slip them over her feet...
"I'm thinking this is a sight and a sound I could get used to. ~ Vonnie Davis

I was used to dancing, but only when someone told you what to do. So in the nightclub I was all over the place, I combined everything. Street dance, modern dance, a bit of jazz and ballet, I was Twyla Tharp, I was Alvin Ailey, I was Michael Jackson. I didn't care, I was free. ~ Madonna Ciccone

When I look at the people who are the guiding figures in modern dance, I think, 'This does not look to me like the way I want to spend my days.' ~ Twyla Tharp

I got the part [in Into the Forest], I started taking ballet again to try to regain my strength back. I actually love that it was changed to Crystal Pite's modern dance. And I wouldn't even really call it modern dance because it feels like it's in its own genre. ~ Evan Rachel Wood

Kun-Yang Lin is a young Taiwanese choreographer with strong American modern dance roots. (His) New York debut at the Cunningham studio were notable for their craft and sturdy spirituality. ~ Jennifer Dunning

I used to dance when I was younger - ballet and modern dance. ~ Nastassja Kinski

The early giants of modern dance - Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis - barely left traces of their art. ~ Robert Gottlieb

Now there is in a way a renaissance of modern dance - suddenly, it is more respected and discovered. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

You know I very much respect Yvonne Rainer, she is very important - in American dance, the entire development of modern dance, and creating a wonderful physical language. ~ Marina Abramovic

Americans will be amazed to find ho many of the modern dance steps are relics of the African heritage. ~ Paul Robeson

I enjoy the freedom of modern dance as well as the constraints of classical dance. ~ Deborah Bull

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It's a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as - as diverse, as different from each other as Donald McKayle and Bill T. Jones, or Jawole Zollar and John Butler, Lar Lubovitch, you know, and Judith Jamison. ~ Judith Jamison

did jesus have a baby sister?
was she bitter?
was she sweet?
did she wind up in a convent?
did she end up on the street?
on the run?
on the stage?
did she dance?
did he have a sister?
a little baby sister?
did jesus have a sister?
did they give her a chance?

did he have a baby sister?
could she speak out by and large?
or was she told by mother mary
ask your brother he's in charge
he's the whipped cream
on the cake
did he have a sister?
a little baby sister?
did jesus have a sister?
did they give her a break?

her brother's
birth announcement
was pretty big
pretty big
i guess
while she got precious
little notice in the local press
her mother was the virgin
when she carried him
carried him
therein
if the little girl came later
then
was she conceived in sin?
and in sorrow?
and in shame?
did jesus have a sister?
what was her name?

and did she long to be the savior
saving everyone
she met?
and in private to her mirror
did she whisper
saviorette?
saviorwoman?
saviorperson?
save your breath!
did he have a sister?
a little baby sister?
did jesus have a sister?
was she there at his death?

and did she cry for mary's comfort
as she watched him
on the cross? < ~ Dory Previn

That day and night, the bleeding and the screaming, had knocked something askew for Esme, like a picture swinging crooked on a wall. She loved the life she lived with her mother. It was beautiful. It was, she sometimes thought, a sweet emulation of the fairy tales they cherished in their lovely, gold-edged books. They sewed their own clothes from bolts of velvet and silk, ate all their meals as picnics, indoors or out, and danced on the rooftop, cutting passageways through the fog with their bodies. They embroidered tapestries of their own design, wove endless melodies on their violins, charted the course of the moon each month, and went to the theater and the ballet as often as they liked--every night last week to see Swan Lake again and again. Esme herself could dance like a faerie, climb trees like a squirrel, and sit so still in the park that birds would come to perch on her. Her mother had taught her all that, and for years it had been enough. But she wasn't a little girl anymore, and she had begun to catch hints and glints of another world outside her pretty little life, one filled with spice and poetry and strangers. ~ Laini Taylor

Did you love it, the rain dance every day? Only when it rained. ~ Andrew Sean Greer

And, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven.
Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had long been "crazy about her." Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him and had affairs with other boys. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at this wedding)
never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for god likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth) ~ E. E. Cummings

I think I'll say goodnight here," Jack said.
"My dad's not so bad."
"Oh yeah,he was great...right up until the time I started dating his daughter."
I'd seen how my dad had become considerably colder toward Jack. There were little clues,like the other evening when out of nowhere he told Jack about how every football player he went to high school with had gotten fat after graduation.We'd been talking about what to make for dinner.
"Okay," I said. "Maybe next time." I leaned over to peck him on the cheek, but he grabbed my face in both of his hands and kissed me. His breath tasted like the mints the chaperones had passed out when the dance was over, and when he parted his lips against mine, I shivered, but not because of the cold. I pressed against him even more and hoped the dark inside the car obscured my dad's view.
But I knew better than to push it.As I was about to break away,Jack put his hands behind my waist and pulled me even closer,practically lifting me over the center console,so I was sitting in his lap.
I pulled back. "My dad's going to love that-"
He put his finger over my lips, cutting me off. "Please don't talk about your dad when I'm kissing you. Besides, unless he's enacted a law against it-"
"Which he may well do after tonight," I interrupted.
He smiled and then brought my face to his again for a few moments before finally releasing me.
"After that kiss,we'd better dream of the same thing tonight," he said with ~ Brodi Ashton

I've taken classes most of my life, and it's no secret among my friends I want to be in a movie about dance. Maybe 'Step Up 2,' with the delightful Channing Tatum. ~ Marsha Thomason

Modern man has too many masks to wear. We must unmask and be ourselves, sincerely, earnestly and live truly as we are, ~ Gyomay M. Kubose

Did you see that dress?" "I saw the dress." "Did you like it?" He didn't answer. I took that as a yes. "Am I going to endanger my reputation if I wear it to the dance?" When he spoke, I could barely hear him. "You'll endanger the school." I smiled and fell asleep. ~ Richelle Mead

Today, for the mass of humanity, science and technology embody 'miracle, mystery, and authority'. Science promises that the most ancient human fantasies will at last be realized. Sickness and ageing will be abolished; scarcity and poverty will be no more; the species will become immortal. Like Christianity in the past, the modern cult of science lives on the hope of miracles. But to think that science can transform the human lot is to believe in magic. Time retorts to the illusions of humanism with the reality: frail, deranged, undelivered humanity. Even as it enables poverty to be diminished and sickness to be alleviated, science will be used to refine tyranny and perfect the art of war. ~ John N. Gray

Wine lead to folly, making even the wise to laugh immoderately, to dance, and to utter what had better have been kept silent. ~ Homer

Rush like a river from the highest mountain, drink from the fountain and stop your counting. What kind of wine does he have in his tavern, oh so enchanted and sing like a mad man. Mad with the love of a wife for her husband, child or mother, sister or brother ... sing for the Most High, sing for no other. We are all notes in this eternal song, God plays his flute and we all dance along. ~ Trevor Hall

You're on, Ted," I told him. "Your big chance, boy. Don't blow it. Folks, this kid is going to dance his balls off before your very eyes. ~ Richard Bachman

The birth and growth of modern antisemitism has been accompanied by and interconnected with Jewish assimilation, the secularization and withering away of the old religious and spiritual values of Judaism. What actually happened was that great parts of the Jewish people were at the same time threatened by physical extinction from without and dissolution from within. In this situation, Jews concerned with the survival of their people would, in a curious and desperate misinterpretation, hit on the consoling idea that antisemitism, after all, might be an excellent means for keeping the people together so that the assumption of external antisemitism would even imply an external guarantee of Jewish existence. This superstition, a secularized travesty of the idea of eternity inherent in a faith in chosenness and a Messianic hope, has been strengthened through the fact that for many centuries the Jews experienced the Christian brand of hostility which was indeed a powerful agent of preservation, spiritually as well as politically. The Jews mistook modern anti-Christian antisemitism for the old religious Jew-hatred - and this all the more innocently because their assimilation had by-passed Christianity in its religious and cultural aspect. Confronted with an obvious symptom of the decline of Christianity, they could therefore imagine in all ignorance that this was some revival of the so-called "Dark Ages." Ignorance or misunderstanding of their own past were partly responsible for the ~ Hannah Arendt

Only when you drink from the river of silence, shall you indeed sing. And, when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And, when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
-Khalid Gibran ~ Jean Sasson

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, 'Try all things, hold fast by that which is good'; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic position, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.

The results of the working out of the agnostic principle will vary according to individual knowledge and capacity, and according to the general condition of science. That which is unproved today may be proved, by the help of new discoveries, tomorrow. The only negative fixed points will be those negations which flow from the demonstrable limitation of our faculties. And the only obligation accepted is to have the mind always open to conviction.

That it is wrong for a man to sa ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

Hitler was so modern, in that he was obsessed with being famous. He was caught up with this rush to be have achieved greatness before turning 30. ~ John Cusack

When Oscar Niemeyer died on December 5, 2012, ten days before his 105th birthday, he was universally regarded as the very last of the twentieth century's major architectural masters, an astonishing survivor whose most famous accomplishment, Brasilia, was the climactic episode of utopian High Modern urbanism. ~ Martin Filler

Wylan drew himself up. "I may not have had your ... education, but I'm sure I know plenty of words that you don't."
"Also the proper way to fold a napkin and dance a minuet. Oh, and you can play the flute. Marketable skills, merchling. Marketable skills."
"No one dances the minuet any more," grumbled Wylan. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Religion is not based on belief or faith: religion is based on awe, religion is based on wonder. Religion is based on the mysterious that is your surround. To feel it, to be aware of it, to see it, open your eyes and drop the dust of the ages. Clean your mirror! and see what beauty surrounds you, what tremendous grandeur goes on knocking at your doors. Why are you sitting with closed eyes? Why are you sitting with such long faces? Why can't you dance? and why can't you laugh? ~ Rajneesh

In the modern world the intelligence of public opinion is the one indispensable condition for social progress. ~ Charles William Eliot

Wardrobing is buying an item of clothing, wearing it for a while, and then returning it in such a state that the store has to accept it but can no longer resell it. By engaging in wardrobing, consumers are not directly stealing money from the company; instead, it is a dance of buying and returning, with many unclear transactions involved. But there is at least one clear consequence - the clothing industry estimates that its annual losses from wardrobing are about $16 billion (about the same amount as the estimated annual loss from home burglaries and automobile theft combined). ~ Dan Ariely

He carded his fingers through Bach's gleaming hair. "You're like the sun," he whispered.

"What does that make you?" Bach asked, nuzzling his face into the cradle of Einion's hip and untying his stockings with work-nimble fingers.

"Common as earth."

"More like the moon." Bach sat back on his heels and looked up. His eyes were gravity, night-dark and huge. Einion felt himself about to fall in. "Moving tides with the force of your will, forever holding half of yourself away from the rest of creation, silent and still and seductively changeable. Maddening. Caught in a dance with the sun for all of time." (Einion and Bach from The Prophecy of Ydrys Vega ~ Bran Mydwynter

Were modern cities only beautiful after darkness hid everything but their lights? ~ Helen McCloy

Just take my hand &let us dance under a chandelier of starlight. ~ Trevor Driggers

Your eyes, accustomed to semi-darkness, will soon open to more radiant visions of light. The shadows which we shall paint shall be more luminous than the high-lights of our predecessors, and our pictures, next to those of the museums, will shine like blinding daylight, compared with deepest night. We conclude that painting cannot exist today without divisionism ... Divisionism, for the modern painter, must be an innate complementariness which we declare to be essential and necessary. ~ Umberto Boccioni

The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience and trinkets. It's unequivocally absurd. ~ Zoltan Istvan

I was struck - not for the first time in my years of travel - by how isolating contemporary American society can seem by comparison. Where I came from, we have shriveled down the notion of what constitutes 'a family unit' to such a tiny scale that it would probably be unrecognizable as a family to anybody in one of these big, loose, enveloping Hmong clans. You almost need an electron microscope to study the modern Western family these days. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Did you ever hear about the rock and roll singer who got 3 or 4 Cadillacs, saying power to the people, dance to the music, wants you to pat him on the back. ~ Van Morrison

It's a strange feeling, when you hear a good piece of music. It starts out kind of shaky, this hot, heavy knot in your chest. At first it's tiny, like a spot of light in a dark room, but then it builds, pouring through you. And the next thing you know, everything from your forehead down to your fingers and toes is on fire. You feel like the hot, heavy knot in your chest is turning into a bubble. It's full of everything good in the world, and if you don't do something
if you don't run or dance or shout to everyone in the world about this music you've just heard
it'll explode. ~ Claire Legrand

As on Easter Island and at Chaco Canyon, Maya peak population numbers were followed swiftly by political and social collapse. Paralleling the eventual extension of agriculture from Easter Island's coastal lowlands to its uplands, and from the Mimbres floodplain to the hills, Copan's inhabitants also expanded from the floodplain to the more fragile hill slopes, leaving them with a larger population to feed when the agricultural boom in the hills went bust. Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by pukao, and like Anasazi elite treating themselves to necklaces of 2,000 turquoise beads, Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster-reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEOs. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels. ~ Jared Diamond

Love is kisses and touches and all the little things that make your body flood with emotions such as need, want, protectiveness, jealousy, hurt, and anger. It can take your breath away, or smother you at times, and make you feel like you can't go on. Your heart may race a thousand miles per minute, then slow down, and then race again, just with a simple look. Love is deadly and can kill you from the inside out if you let it. It makes you do stupid, ridiculous things, and say senseless sappy words, or listen to silly love songs, jazz, or dance in the streets, or laugh, or smile. Love is a weapon, or a drug, and can drive a person mad. I know what love is ... ~ Lyra Parish

To achieve some depth in your field requires a lot of sacrifices. Want to or not, you're thinking about what you're doing in life-in my case, dancing. ~ Mikhail Baryshnikov

Dancers work and live from the inside. They drive themselves constantly producing a glow that lights not only themselves but audience after audience. ~ Murray Louis

It was about being able to dance like Cassidy did, as though no one was watching, as though the moment was infinite enough without needing to document its existence. ~ Robyn Schneider

On the whole, the modern palette is the same as the one used by the artists of Pompeii ... I mean it has not been enriched. The ancients used earths, ochres, and ivory-black - you can do anything with that palette. ~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Young sisters, be modest. Modesty in dress and language and deportment is a true mark of refinement and a hallmark of a virtuous Latter-day Saint woman. Shun the low and the vulgar and the suggestive. . . .

Don't see R-rated movies or vulgar videos or participate in any entertainment that is immoral, suggestive, or pornographic. And don't accept dates from young men who would take you to such entertainment. . . .

Also, don't listen to music that is degrading. . . .

Instead, we encourage you to listen to uplifting music, both popular and classical, that builds the spirit. Learn some favorite hymns from our new hymnbook that build faith and spirituality. Attend dances where the music and the lighting and the dance movements are conducive to the Spirit. Watch those shows and entertainment that lift the spirit and promote clean thoughts and actions. Read books and magazines that do the same.

Remember, young women, the importance of proper dating. President Kimball gave some wise counsel on this subject: "Clearly, right marriage begins with right dating. . . . Therefore, this warning comes with great emphasis. Do not take the chance of dating nonmembers, or members who are untrained and faithless. A girl may say, 'Oh, I do not intend to marry this person. It is just a "fun" date.' But one cannot afford to take a chance on falling in love with someone who may never accept the gospel" (The Miracle of Forgiveness, pp. 241–42).

Ou ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Poetry is a storm asking peace to dance with her. ~ Jenim Dibie