quotations about dance & dancing
Dance, dance, as long as ye can, We must travel through life, but why make a dead march of it?
ELIZA COOK
"Dancing-Song", Eliza Cook's Journal
In a society that worships love, freedom and beauty, dance is sacred,It is a prayer for the future, a remembrance of the past and a joyful exclamation of thanks for the present.
AMELIA ATWATER-RHODES
The Shapeshifters
Now is the time for drinking, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth.
HORACE
Odes
Dancing is the child of music and love.
A. FANDANGO
"Of Dancing"
It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance.
XIAOLU GUO
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Arrow of God
Dance ... is life, or becomes it, in a way that other arts cannot attain. It is not in stone, or words or tones, but in our muscles. It is a formulation of their movements.
BAKER BROWNELL
Art Is Action
Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance. Great dancers are great because of their passion.
MARTHA GRAHAM
attributed, It's All About You
The dance is four-dimensional art in that it moves concretely in both space and time. For the onlooker, it is an art largely of visual space combined with time. But for the dancer, and this is more important, the dance is more a muscular than a visual space rhythm, a muscular time, a muscular movement and balance. Dancing is not animated sculpture, it is kinesthetic.
BAKER BROWNELL
Art Is Action
So the sun goes down and the world goes dancing
And the stars come out and they all go dancing
And there is nothing I'd like more
Than a twirl across this rickety old floor
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
"The Sun Goes Down and the World Goes Dancing"
We view dance as a marriage of the representational capacity of language and the rhythmicity of music. This interaction allows people not only to tell stories using their bodies but to do so while synchronizing their movements with others' in a way that fosters social cohesion.
STEVEN BROWN
Scientific American, Jul. 2008
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the meadows;
Old folk and young together, and children mingled among them.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Evangeline
They have measured many a mile,
To tread a measure with you on this grass.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Love's Labour's Lost
I would only believe in a God that knows how to dance.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them.
VICKI BAUM
I Know What I'm Worth
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
attributed, Dancing with Natasha
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.
DON HENLEY & GLENN FREY
"Hotel California"
DANCE, v.i. To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
MARTHA GRAHAM
attributed, Martha Graham
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of horizontal desire.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
New Statesman, March 23, 1962