Judith Jamison Quotes

I haven't had a family, but I don't think of that as a sacrifice: my dancers are my family.

I believe in spirit and then I believe a manifestation of spirit is dance

So many people dwell on negativity and I've survived by ignoring it: it dims your light and it's harder each time to turn the power up again.

Dance is bigger than the physical body. When you extend your arm, it doesn't stop at the end of your fingers, because you're dancing bigger than that; you're dancing spirit.

I want people to have their own visions for the dance. Some generations will sit back and relate to the music. And the young people ...they'll have the dance right in front of them.

Dance is not endangered - it will always find a way to express itself.

Maybe its a generational thing, but I never wanted to be the best black dancer in the world. I just wanted to be the best.

I've been in a competitive situation almost all my life. I've been having a competition with myself and trying to be the best I could be.

I've danced all over the world, and people are people. We cannot cut off from each other in life. In order to lead, you can't do that.

The word 'suffering' is not in my vocabulary.

I have been guilty of watching Westerns without acknowledging that Native Americans have gone through the same madness as African Americans. Isn't it extraordinary that sometimes the most offended have not seen others being offended?

We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?

I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.

People come to see beauty, and I dance to give it to them.

I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message.

Every dancer lives on the threshold of chucking it.

I felt the naivete of a child in my dancing. I cherished that feeling. I had what I call a knowledgeable naivete, and it worked for me.

Dance is about never-ending aspiration.

The first time I started choreographing was in the dark, in my living room, with the lights completely out, to some popular music on the radio. I put the radio on full blast and I started moving. I didn't know what it looked like. I didn't want to see it... I had to start in the dark.

If you look at a dancer in silence, his or her body will be the music. If you turn the music on, that body will become an extension of what you're hearing.

I believe that this world was set about for us to enjoy and to love and to experience and to have it all be, to a certain extent, unpredictable. Ever since I was a child I have believed that my life has been guided.

Concert dance is the hardest kind of dance. We tour constantly, around the world, year in and year out. It just doesn't work for everybody. It's the lifestyle, it's the stamina, it's the love, it's the dedication, it's the commitment, it's all those words.

Once you've danced, you always dance. You can't deny the gifts that God sends your way

I want to know who you are as a person, and then I want you to develop as a whole human being.

Excellence is the name of the game.

Dancing is being trusted with other people's guts; choreographing is trusting other people with yours. When I choreograph I'm giving a dancer something to do and trusting the dancer to do it and build on it.

It's never too early to teach your children about the tool of money. Teach them how to work for it and they learn pride and self-respect. Teach them how to save it and they learn security and self-worth. Teach them how to be generous with it and they learn love.

You don't enter a dance studio and say "I can't do that." If you do, then why are you in the studio in the first place?

Learn the craft of knowing how to open your heart and to turn on your creativity. There's a light inside of you.

I'm moved by contraries, by opposites, the strength that was my mother's eyes, the beauty of my father's hands.

Dancing is a gift. You are supposed to do it; it's like breathing.

It's a real gift to have a husband and wife in the company that love each other and that work together. They check on each other emotionally and physically. That's beautiful to me.

I've always felt that complement of opposites: body and soul, solitude and companionship, and in the dance studio, contraction and release, rise and fall.