Inspirational Quotes: The Artistry of Dance

Sometimes all artists can get too caught up in their technique and forget about the artistic side of what they’re doing. Dancers, of course, are no exception. Particularly when you’re teaching budding dancers the basics, you can get a little caught up in the details and forget what you actually want to inspire them to become, feel and achieve through dance. These quotes may help you and your staff remain centered and inspire your young protégés to push past the technical aspects of dance and create art and beauty as they move.

Dancers as Artists

As any Balletomane knows, dancers are true artists. All artists are gifts to the world, and when we help create true dancers, we are serving our world in a very special way, doing our small part in making the entire planet a happier and more rewarding place for all of us.

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.” Twyla Tharp

“An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.” Charles Horton Cooley

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” Leonardo da Vinci

“To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.” Kurt Vonnegut

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” Émile Zola

Dance & Other Artistic Pursuits

We think this next round of quotes might just propel you into a Tour en l’air — or a Grande Jeté, at the very least — the way they so complimentarily compare dance to other forms of art. One might even get the impression that dance is the highest form of art; we doubt you’ll disagree.

“The body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature, the body.” Martha Graham

“Dancers are a work of art – they are the canvas on which their work is painted.” Patrick Duffy

“The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.” Mata Hari

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body.” Martha Graham

“Playwrights have texts, composers have scores, painters and sculptors have the residue of those activities, and dance is traditionally an ephemeral, effervescent, here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of thing.” Twyla Tharp

“The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.” James Gates Percival

“The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs.” Charles Baudelaire