Judith Jamison Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

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

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison
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?

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison
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?

Judith Jamison
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.

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

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

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison
I feel like an ordained minister; I was supposed to preach here. Through dance, we're as close to God as we're going to get—until he calls us home.

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison
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.

Judith Jamison