quotations about dance & dancing
Dance, dance, as long as ye may,
Nature gets up a great ballet around us;
Her stage-room is vast, so come, trip it away,
For Life's Opera cannot be perfect without us.
ELIZA COOK
"Dancing-Song", Eliza Cook's Journal
Dancing is wonderful training for girls, it's the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it.
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
Kitty Foyle
a midnight dance for me
mattress, mattress mambo
mattress, do the mattress mambo
bouncing off the headboard, slip on satin sheets
titillating tango in the bedroom can t be beat
ANVIL
"Matress Mambo"
Crazy 'bout your rhythm when you're rock'n'rolling,
All I'm asking honey is that you control it.
Your dancing is entrancing, oh, yes indeedy,
But my one objection is you're much too speedy.
NEIL SEDAKA
"You're Knocking Me Out"
Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the dishevelled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.
W. B. YEATS
The Land of Heart's Desire
I will tell you a secret: If you do not join the dance, we will know you are a fool. But if you dance, we will think well of you for trying. If you dance badly to begin and we laugh, what is the sin in that? We will begin there.
ROBERT FULGHUM
What On Earth Have I Done?
As to dancing, my dear, I never dance, unless I am allowed to do it in my own peculiar way. There is no use trying to describe it: it has to be seen to be believed.... Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight.
LEWIS CARROLL
letter to Gaynor Simpson, Dec. 27, 1873
"Dance you shall," said he, "dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton! Dance you shall, from door to door, and where proud and wicked children live you shall knock, so that they may hear you and fear you! Dance you shall, dance!"
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
"The Red Shoes"
Someone once said that dancers work just as hard as policemen, always alert, always tense, but see, policemen don't have to be beautiful at the same time.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
attributed, Little Book of Dance Quotations
Dancing can reveal all the mystery that music hides, and it has the further merit of being human and palpable. Dance is poetry with arms and legs, it's matter, gracious and terrible, animated and embellished by movement.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
La Fanfarlo
My favourite type of dancing is done upon a bed
moving to the music that plays within my head
ANVIL
"Matress Mambo"
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Among School Children"
He danceth well to whom fortune pipeth.
ELLEN PICKERING
The Orphan Niece
No one dances sober, unless he is insane.
CICERO
Pro Murena
People have asked me why I chose to be a dancer. I did not choose. I was chosen to be a dancer, and with that, you live all your life.
MARTHA GRAHAM
Blood Memory
Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
Oh the lights dim while we're dancing
Yeah the floor is shaking
In this disco heaven
(Oh disco heaven)
LADY GAGA
"Disco Heaven", The Fame
Dancing is not a crime, 'less you do it without me.
PANIC! AT THE DISCO
"Dancing's Not a Crime"
We look at the dance to impart the sensation of living in an affirmation of life, to energize the spectator into keener awareness of the vigor, the mystery, the humor, the variety, and the wonder of life.
MARTHA GRAHAM
attributed, Modern Dance (Stewart)
When you have a garden full of pretty flowers, you don't demand of them, "What do you mean? What is your significance?" Dancers are just flowers, and flowers grow without any literal meaning, they are just beautiful. We're like flowers. A flower doesn't tell you a story. It's in itself a beautiful thing.
GEORGE BALANCHINE
"Balanchine Said", The New Yorker, January 26, 2009