quotations about dance & dancing
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
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
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"
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
As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
CHINUA ACHEBE
Things Fall Apart
He danceth well to whom fortune pipeth.
ELLEN PICKERING
The Orphan Niece
If people stand in a circle long enough, they'll eventually begin to dance.
GEORGE CARLIN
Napalm and Silly Putty
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"
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?
When you are on the dancefloor, there is nothing to do but dance.
UMBERTO ECO
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.
OSCAR WILDE
attributed, New Contrast, vol. 34
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"Among School Children"
No one dances sober, unless he is insane.
CICERO
Pro Murena
Dancing is not a crime, 'less you do it without me.
PANIC! AT THE DISCO
"Dancing's Not a Crime"
"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"
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
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
My favourite type of dancing is done upon a bed
moving to the music that plays within my head
ANVIL
"Matress Mambo"
Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.
CONFUCIUS
The Analects
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