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Great Dance Quotes

Updated on September 29, 2011

"Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another."

Whether you're a ballerina, tap dancer, hip hopper, jazzer, Broadway dancer or just a dance lover, the right quote can motivate or inspire you!

As a dancer and dance teacher, I am always looking for new quotes - I like to put them on the walls of my dance studio or share them with my students.

I hope you find something that moves you or makes you think a little differently - those are the best quotes!

Dancing With Soul

Or is it sole? Either way, here are some inspirational quotes

"Dancing is silent poetry."

- Simonides

"Dance is a delicate balance between perfection and beauty."

- Author Unknown

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

- Constanze

"Dancing with the feet is one thing,

but dancing with the heart is another."

- Author Unknown

"God respects you when you work, but he loves you when you dance."

- Sufi Saying

"To dance is to reach for a word that doesn't exist,

To sing the heartsong of a thousand generations,

To feel the meaning of a moment in time."

- Beth Jones

"While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life.

I can only be joyful and whole. This is why I dance."

- Hans Bos

"Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts. For it is no mere translation or abstraction of life. It is life itself."

- Henry Havelock Ellis

"Technical perfection is insufficient.

It is an orphan without the true soul of a dancer."

- Sylvie Guillium

"To touch, to move, to inspire.

This is the true gift of dance."

- Aubrey Lynch

"Dance isn't something that can be explained in words.

It has to be danced."

- Paige Arden

"The dance is the mother of the arts.

Music and poetry exist in time; painting and architecture in space.

But the dance lives at once in time and space."

- Curt Sachs

“Dance like there's nobody watching,

Love like you'll never be hurt.

Sing like there's nobody listening,

And live like it's heaven on earth.”

- William W. Purkey

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams"

- Eleanor Roosevelt

”We either make ourselves miserable,

or we make ourselves strong.

The amount of work is the same.”

- Carlos Castaneda

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you are.”

- Author Unknown

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to be over,

it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”

- Author Unknown

“The journey between who you once were,

and who you are now becoming,

is where the dance of life really takes place.”

- Barbara De Angelis

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else.

I only try to dance better than myself."

- Mikhail Baryshnikov

"Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn."

- Sweetpea Tyler

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.”

- Martha Graham

“Some men have thousands of reasons why they cannot do what they want to, when all they need is one reason why they can.”

- Martha Graham

"Dancing's not work. You can't call it work.

A day I don't dance is a day I don't live."

- from "Serpent of the Nile"

“To learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living,

the principles are the same."

- Martha Graham

“You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.”

- Martha Graham

“You see, when weaving a blanket, an Indian woman leaves a flaw in the weaving of that blanket to let the soul out.”

- Martha Graham

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak."

- Hopi Indian Saying

"Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing.

It's the rhythm of your life.

It's the expression in time and movement,

in happiness, joy, sadness and envy."

- Jaques D'ambroise

"To touch, to move, to inspire.

This is the true gift of dance."

- Aubrey Lynch

Strength, Struggle and Beauty

Quotes about the body and dance

"Dance - an art form. The body - an instrument. Learn to play the instrument and master the art form."

- Debbie Dee

"It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer."

- Shanna LaFleur

"The dance is the mother of the arts. Music and poetry exist in time; painting and architecture in space. But the dance lives at once in time and space."

- Curt Sachs

"People tend to look at dancers like we are these little jewels, little cardboard cut-outs, and yet we have blood and guts and go through Hell."

- Susan Jaffe

"The trained dancer must not only have grace and elegance, but also the leap of an Olympic hurdler, the balance of a tight-rope walker and panther-like strength and agility."

- Camilla Jessel

"You know you're dancing when tears of

pain and happiness blend in with your sweat."

- Anonymous

"Try to be fearless, because fear can inhibit you and keep you from a life."

- Miranda Weese (NYCB)

"A dancer's body is her temple"

- Paulette Rees-Denis

There are shortcuts to happiness,

and dancing is one of them.

Vicki Baum

Choreography Quotes

”Choreography is simpler than you think.

Just go and do, and don't think so much about it.

Just make something interesting.”

- George Balanchine

“Good choreography fuses eye, ear and mind.”

- Arlene Croce

“A choreographic idea flows only as fast as the initiator

can communicate it to bodies and see them realize it.”

- Marcia B. Siegal

”God creates, I do not create.

I assemble and I steal everywhere to do it –

from what I see, from what the dancers can do,

from what others do...”

- George Balanchine

“I often say that in making dances I can make a world where I think things are done morally,

done democratically, done honestly.”

- Twyla Tharp

"The choreographer cannot deliberately make a ballet to appeal to an audience,

he has to start from personal inspirations.

He has to trust the ballet,

to let it stand on its own strengths or fall on its weaknesses.

If it reaches the audience, then he is lucky that round!"

- Gerald Arpino

“I think Balanchine and Robbins talk to God and when I call, he's out to lunch.”

- Bob Fosse

“I don't want dancers who want to dance.

I want dancers who have to dance.”

- George Balanchine

“Dances without purpose have false starts and stops."

- Hanya Holm

“I'm not interested in a group of people with some sort of

incredible homogeny, a group that can do the movement I want.

I'm interested in people who can take the movement somewhere.”

- Graeme Murphy

“Dancers are instruments, like a piano the choreographer plays.”

- George Balanchine

I don't want dancers

who want to dance.

I want dancers who have to dance.

- George Balanchine

Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music conceals.

Charles Baudelaire

Tell us what you think or add your own favorite dance quote!

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