for the clouds that dance

So much of our universe is in motion. In outer space, planets circle the sun. our own circling planet, the earth, turns upon its axis ― a pattern of motion that is repeated within each atom, where spinning electrons circle a nucleus of protons and neutrons. Looking around us, we behold the stately passage of the seasons and the inexorable passage of each separate life from birth to maturity to old age and death. Life itself is movement. No wonder, then, that one of the oldest of the arts is the art of movement ― dance. -Jack Anderson-

Be bolder, let yourself go more. -Frédéric Chopin-

To understand dance for what it is, it is necessary we know from whence it comes and where it goes. It comes from the depths of man's inner nature, the unconscious, where memory dwells. As such it inhabits the dancer. it goes into the experience of man, the spectator, awakening similar memories. -Martha Graham-

You have to frame music with your body, you have to give poetry with your body. -Héctor Zaraspe-

Listen to the music with your soul. Now, while listening, do you not feel an inner self awakening deep within you ― that it is by its strength that your head is lifted, that your arms are raised, that you are walking slowly toward the light? -Isadora Duncan-

I was brought up to believe that if someone really wanted to dance, you must do everything for them. -Leon Danielian-

An outsider is fascinated to be let in on the minuteness of the workmanship. But then he finds no way out of that minuteness. Listening to the same few bars pounded again and again on the piano, watching the same movements started at top speed and broken off, again and again, the fascinated outsider after two hours and a half of that finds himself going stir crazy. -Edwin Denby-

Seeing a ballet in the theatre the momentum of action and music carries the audience into a world of zest and grandeur. In performance the dancers look ravishing. In rehearsal they look like exhausted champions attempting Mt. Everest, knowing how limited the time is, step by step, hold by hold, roped together by the music, with the peak nowhere in sight... -Edwin Denby-

What the dancer does physically, is not of maximum importance. It is how the dancer enlivens the space in which he moves that is important. -Karel Shook-

The dance is a living language which speaks of man ― an artistic message soaring above the ground of reality in order to speak, on a higher level, in images and allegories of man's innermost emotions and need for communication. -Mary Wigman-

When I first visualize the dance, I see the characters moving in color and costume. Before I go into rehearsal, I know what costumes the people wear and generally what color and texture. I also, to a large extent, hear the orchestral effects . . . -Agnes de Mille-

You see, art emanates from humanity, and we are dealing first with human beings and secondly with dancers. -Karel Shook-

The idea of my life in dance is to absorb as much as possible. . . I had to prove my good will . . . That I do not want to be just star . . . -Rudolf Nureyev-

... becoming masterly takes a long time and a constant escalation in personal expectation. To keep growing as a dancer takes tenacity and the willingness to explore new methods.You keep feeling doors opening, and you become a little bit more a dancer all the time. -Virginia Johnson-

I really don't think there's much need for us to turn into a society of wagons-lits, but I do think that, in order to attain the goals which"Contemporary Art" has set itself, it should come nearer to life and comprehend present-day demands; only then will it become a "enterprise" and not a fantasy. -Sergei Diaghilev-

Creative ability belongs to the sphere of reality as much as to the realm of fantasy. And there are always two currents, two circles of tension, which magnetically attract one another, flash up and oscillate together until, complete attuned, they penetrate one another. -Mary Wigman-

. . . actually I found more personal freedom in the West. I have found the freedom to fail, to be pessimistic. All Soviet art has to be optimistic. The sun must always shine. -Rudolf Nureyev-

The great quality of true art is that it rediscovers, grasps and reveals to us that reality far from where we live, from which we get farther and farther away as the conventional knowledge we substitute for becomes thicker and more impermeable.  - Marcel Proust -

Ballet is a delicate art, but it requires more will power and self-discipline than any other art. It expressed the strongest feelings of a human being ― from the deepest despair and anger to the purest and most ecstatic joy. -Felia Doubrovska-

. . . the greatest ballerina in the world. Like a Taglioni, Anna Pavlova doesn't dance, but floats; of her, also, one might say she could walk over a cornfield without breaking a stalk. -Sergei Diaghilev-

In those eleven years of waiting to get to Kirov school ― of course you travel in your mind, and with the help of a map, to all the places so far you knew the existence of, Paris, Milano, London, the Metropolitan, Buenos Aires. . . and you knew the importance of all those places as being centers of ballet . . . -Rudolf Nureyev-

Now I realize: it is my sovereign light that has cleared the mist to let me see the bright moon shining on me from above. -Asukai Masayori-

This is a memory for the journey I took to Arizona, not long ago. Nature express itself in so many forms, the mountains and the clouds, particularly, which are so magnificently in tune with it. Clouds that dance which not only bring me endless inspirations but they also give a little mystical hints to those who just raise their head to see.