Out of Martha's House

It is hard to sum up this book with anything other than "inspirational". Although written about Martha Graham, the founder of Modern Dance, it provides many golden nuggets about art, performance and life.  The book strips away the ego and selfish reasons to do art and reveals the essence, the beauty and simplicity of art and life.

Here are just a few of the treasures within this book:

* Some people when looking at the stage see lights and curtain and a floor used for presenting 'shows'. When I look at a stage, I see the world.

*I know they are. They have had lives of their own and like anything we love we must ask of them, demand of them, and be willing to listen quietly to hear what their reply is and then be willing to give what they ask and demand of us.

*To be attentive enough to hear ourselves speak, sensitive to feel ourselves move to recognize one's self like the old proverb about a stranger at the door, knocking and being told to go away again and again until the man in the house of of desperation or exhaustion or both throws the door open only to recognize himself standing on the other side asking to come in; to battle each day.

*To stand in one place on the stage and to bring the test of the stage to me or just to walk as though one foot's fall would tell all that needed to be told.

*I AM, I LIVE, I AM A BUILDER-DESTROYER. I FIND CONSISTENCY IN CHANGE. I AM ALONE BECAUSE I AM TOO CLOSE TO HUMANITY. I WILL SING WHEN I MOURN SO YOU MAY FEEL HOW I LOVE AND DANCE WHEN I PLOT REVENGE SO YOU WILL SEE HOW TERRIBLE MY LOVE IS. SONGS OF JOY DANCES OF PASSION, THIS IS WHAT YOU MUST KNOW. MOVEMENT OF THE AGES DRAGGED KICKING AND SCREAMING INTO THIS CENTURY TO BE HARNESSED TO HER CHARIOT TO DO BATTLE WITH THE UNKNOWN.

* This work demands you to do more than listen. You must feel. It demands you to do more than see, you must taste. To know what the wind can do what the animal can do and what man is capable of doing is consuming but essential to the work. It's about artists in their own right shouldering the responsibility to discover who a character is rather than waiting ot be told. Being a part of the process of discovery.

* I love to perform a work where there is no exit until the end. But...the performer has to create this feeling for himself like taking hold of a rope at the bottom of the cliff and pulling himself up and over the top. Never letting go for a second an appointment with destiny.


*...And still they do not understand what a performance means to those of us whose performances were limited before we even started like the number of rainbows we will see in a lifetime. When i lose a performance it is gone like someone I should have met but didn't a conversation denied something I might have learned or understood but now never will.

*The animal's scream within me is never heard though it shakes my whole body dear body frail and vulnerable demanding to be strong but crying unable to respond. How long can i continue this masquerade.

*We can dream only so many dreams then we must bring some of them to reality or we stop dreaming or the dreams themselves become false and impotent, no longer as pleasant or passionate vision.

*I am an artist in a world of distraction and disillusionment To dream is to live to remain true to my beliefs, and to continue with faith and inspiration.

*But the works are not ours and never will be, except for the finite time allotted us during performance, and of course, then they are ours like our skin is ours.

* Great works take on lives of their own and have voices that need to be listened to and it's hard for us to listen when we are already demanding that they give something to us before we give our full attention to them. I did not originate many of the roles i perform...They were not comfortable to my body but i wrapped myself around them and by holding on absorbed them to penetrated them and taking the challenge worked to fill and give breath to their shapes.

* I dance for them to understand or see with their intellect I ask that they see my blood, my flesh and when they see that, I will open it so they can see my heart don't ask em to explain the doing.

*Each work is like a mountain unto itself with its own gods and devils. Here, love and hate are not separated by a fine line but are laid one on top of the other like lovers. Sometimes love is on top, much of the time hate is on top, but all of the time they are both there and the product of their union is ocean, wind, desert, plain and mountain of humanity, with with all its terrors and its devastating beauty.  

*My strength is in silence

My life is in the storm

I threw away the compass years ago

The four corners lost their meaning

Forward is my only direction

To simply continue whether inspired or not is the challenge.

Many times the goal is not the finish line but merely to 

put one foot in front of the other. 

When we go until there is no more strength and we continue 

just to continue one foot one hand

one after the other until there is no more artifice

then is when the end becomes the beginning.

*Love is not decorative

it is like nature's elements

nourishing and brutal

love is essential