A Quote by Lincoln Kirstein

If one had to define one essential gift with which a dancer needs to be endowed, there might be a rush of answers. A beautiful body, grace of line, graciousness of spirit, joy in the work, ability to please, unswerving integrity, relentless ambition towards some abstract perfection. Certainly all these factors determine a dancer's character, and every element exists in some combination within the performing artist's presence.

Lincoln Kirstein

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Ability Abstract Ambition Answers Artist Beautiful Beautiful Body Body Certainly Character Combination Dancer Define Determine Element Endowed Essential Every Exists Factors Gift Grace Graciousness Had Integrity Joy Line Might Needs Perfection Performing Performing Artist Please Presence Relentless Rush Some Spirit Towards Which Within Work

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Lincoln Kirstein
American - Writer
May 4, 1907 - January 5, 1996

I taught and studied dance in college, and for over a decade, I thought that would be my career: tap dancer, ballet dancer, modern dancer. I still find myself doing some tumbling or interpretive dancing in the grocery store every now and then.

Margo Price

I consider myself an actress first, a dancer second, and a singer third. Why? Because the dancer needs a reason to move-that's the actor informing the dancer. So I worked on my acting and gradually developed a singing voice.

Liza Minnelli

Mannerism is not character, and affectation is the avowed enemy of grace. Every dancer ought to regard his laborious art as a link in the chain of beauty, as a useful ornament for the stage, and this, in turn, as an important element in the spiritual development of nations.

August Bournonville

Being a former dancer, classical dancer, it informed me as a human being just in terms of the grace I guess. Ballet is a very graceful form of art. You also become very aware of your body and your mind and your body is working in conjunction. That kind of helps you in acting as well. It's not only using your mind, it's like making your mind communicate this character into your body so that you can bring it to life and physicalize it.

Zoe Saldana

A good dancer is not necessarily defined by great technique, skill, or ability to pick up choreography but by confidence. When you feel the music, it penetrates to your soul. Everybody's a dancer. The greatest dancer is someone who is willing to dance, not afraid.

Alyssa Edwards

The voice is certainly important and you can hear if it's beautiful or not, it's the gods who decide; it's more a question of what you do with the voice, which is the mysterious element. It's the personality behind the voice which makes the artist. The voice is a gift of God, but if you're not able to use this gift, what's left? Nothing but a beautiful voice, without nuance or color.

Cecilia Bartoli

I was a dancer for many years. I was a premier dancer with 'Porgy and Bess,' the opera. And I taught dance some, in different places.

Maya Angelou

I was a dancer, so for me, if I don't work out for a week or move my body in some sense, I feel weird.

Kate Hudson

I`m basically a hoofer, a tap dancer. I was always very good from the waist down, moving with the feet... I became what`s known as a total dancer, using the entire body in order to express what you want to express in tap dancing and line.

Donald O'Connor

For me, a dancer is part of an artist's entertainment - 'backup dancer' isn't even in my vocabulary.

Laurieann Gibson

For me, a dancer is part of an artist’s entertainment - “backup dancer” isn’t even in my vocabulary.

Laurieann Gibson

It takes about ten years to make a mature dancer. The training is twofold. There is the study and practice of the craft in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honored, and in time, trusted. The movement become clean, precise, eloquent, truthful. Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul's weather to all who can read it. This might be called the law of the dancer's life, the law which governs its outer aspects

Martha Graham

A dancer must have tremendous personality. A God like Christ and even a godman like Rajneesh had some personality. Combination of talent, dedication, creativity and being emotive is imperative. A coupling of these four qualities with technique is essential. Monotony is deterrent as it regards your style and I notice today, that new dancers perform in a startlingly similar fashion.

Yamini Krishnamurthy

When you train as a dancer, you understand you have to work exceptionally hard. I think dancers are the hardest - working people in show business. You have to push your body beyond where you thought it could go. It's athleticism. Perfection doesn't exist, but with classical ballet, there is an ideal, and I got obsessed with that ideal. In some ways, it was problematic because I don't have an ideal ballet body, but the discipline is what I carry with me to this day. That's my park, the discipline of dancing.

Laverne Cox

When needs and means become abstract in quality, abstraction is also a character of the reciprocal relation of individuals to oneanother. This abstract character, universality, is the character of being recognized and is the moment which makes concrete, i.e. social, the isolated and abstract needs and their ways and means of satisfaction.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process... (I) had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer.

Twyla Tharp

A Quote by Lincoln Kirstein

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