A Quote by Chita Rivera

Jerome Robbins, to me, is the genius of a lifetime. — © Chita Rivera
Jerome Robbins, to me, is the genius of a lifetime.
I absolutely loved Jerome Robbins. We were all so lucky to be in the same room with this man.
'Seven Sonatas,' with its flowing series of meetings between men and women in an identifiable emotional world, is in the mould of Jerome Robbins' glorious 'Dances at a Gathering.'
Balanchine is the number one influence for me. His work was really musically driven. He and Jerome Robbins were the ones who really showed me that dance could be about the inner relation between movement and music. When I was a student first seeing their work, I was like, 'Oh, this is a thing?'
That's very important to me as well: presentation and how people perceive you, the visual of how things look, your posture. I learned that from [Bob] Fosse and Jerome Robbins, from all the great theater directors and the Busby Berkeleys. You overdeliver: visually, emotionally.
As a dancer I had worked with really hard choreographers, Jerome Robbins being the toughest. And you learned what it is to hit against a brick wall. And you learned pretty quickly to go around the wall or say, "I can't take this job."
I grew up in the inner city of Chicago, and then I moved to Robbins, and it kind of raised me. When I was in college, I actually had them change the starting lineup to say 'from Robbins, Illinois' instead of 'Chicago, Illinois.'
I think Mike Nichols is brilliant, but I think Jerry Robbins was a genius.
In my early teens, I read every bound volume of the magazine Punch. Every writer of any distinction in the English language, and I mean including America and England, at some time wrote for Punch. Jerome K. Jerome, who wrote Three Men In A Boat, I loved. I was very impressed when I read a piece by Mark Twain in Punch, and realized that despite the fact that they were on different continents, Jerome K. Jerome and Mark Twain had the same kind of laconic, laid-back, "The human race is damn stupid, but quite interesting" attitude. They were almost talking with the same voice.
I particularly admire are Mark Twain and Jerome K. Jerome who wrote in a certain tone of voice which was humane and understanding of humanity, but always ready to annotate its little foibles. I think I'd lay my cards down on that, and say that it's that that I'm trying to do.
Genius is a potential that lives within you and every other human being. You have many moments of genius in your lifetime. These are the times when you have a uniquely brilliant idea and implement it even if only you are aware of how fantastic it is.
Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius - I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.
I'm a big Marty Robbins fan. I love Marty Robbins. Of course, everybody does. That's not such a big shock.
The last time I had to make a career decision, I was 17. I could have gone to Ballet Theatre or National Ballet of Canada. There were options. But as I became exposed to the Robbins repertoire, I realized that there was a living genius in the house.
great artists can be uncertain. Of course they are while strugggling to find solutions. Tolstoi's scripts are almost indecipherable. Emily Dickinson provided four or more alternates for every word; Beethoven wrestled with endings to the point of exhaustion; in our day Jerome Robbins and his lack of decision are a byword in the dance profession. But all of these knew very well what they did not want, and what they did not want was the current coin, the well-worn usage. What they wanted was something newly experienced, and therefore unknown and hard to attain.
Universality is the distinguishing mark of genius. There is no such thing as a special genius, a genius for mathematics, or for music, or even for chess, but only a universal genius. The genius is a man who knows everything without having learned it.
In Oakland, Al Davis was a genius. We had Ron Wolff there, too, and he was a genius. There was no room for me to be a genius.
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