... and that the patterns you weave upon the night have such swift passion, such essential heat, that all the painter sees, the poet can write, are but pale shadows of your dancing feet... -- Humbert Wolfe

A dancer is not great because of her technique. A dancer is great because of her passion. -- Martha Graham

A song vibrates through my spirit with words of love, compassion and peace. While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life. That is why I dance. -- anon.

'A'a i ka hula; waiho i ka hilahila i ka hale. Dare to dance; leave embarrassment at home. -- a saying from Hawai'i I learned from Mahea Uchiyama

Art is the communication of ecstasy -- Baraka

As if the dancer and the music are one, like a pencil and the line it draws. -- Suraya Hilal

Bailas como sos (You dance who you are.) -- Nito Garcia, Argentine Tango Master

Be patient with the dance. The dance reveals the dancer, one movement at a time. -- Aziza Sa'id

Belly Dancing Burns 370 calories an hour -- Family Circle

Bellydancing is more fun and less expensive than a psychiatrist. It takes you to a natural high. -- Cindy, (Jewels of the Nile, Fort Collins, CO)

Beside the fire, as the wood burns black, A laughing dancer in veils of light , Whose dance transforms the darkness to gold. -- Abu Abd Allah ben Abi-l-Khisal from the Intro. of Serpent of the Nile by Buonaventura

Commitment creates freedom. When you commit to a movement, you make it with your whole body. When you commit to a feeling, your passion will give power to your message. When you commit to a dance, your feeling reaches beyond your limitations. When you commit to your path, give yourself over to your way of growth, Magic happens... obstacles get out of your way, mountains lay down before you, the sky opens up above you, and you will find yourself transformed. -- Aziza Sa'id

Dance doesn't just reside in the heart, it IS the heart -- -Jalilah Sahar

Dance is emotion made visible. -- Aziza Sa'id

Dance is Life - Be Bold. -- Aziza Sa'id

Dance is like life, it exists as your flitting through it, and when it's over, it's done -- Jerome Robbins

Dance is so important in the world. It needs no language. Our bodies speak a language of its own., -- Ibrahim Farrah

Dance is the hidden language of the soul. -- Martha Graham

Dance is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. -- Havelock Ellis, 'The Dance of Life'

Dance is work, hard work -- and not just physical, but emotional and intellectual and spiritual. You gotta be fearless, or at least unafraid to face your fears and ride through it, coming out stronger. Challenge yourself to push for the best, not just diddle around. Take it seriously, love it, hate it, fight with it, dance with it. Jump off the dang cliff and GO for it! -- Baraka

Dance, when you're broken open / Dance, when you've torn the bandage off / Dance in the middle of the fighting / Dance in your blood. / Dance, when you're perfectly free. -- Jelaladin Mevlana Rumi

Dance your own truth. Your authentic feeling for this music in this moment is the only reality you have to create your dance from. -- Aziza Sa'id

Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery. -- Martha Graham, interview 'The New York Times', March 31, 1985

Dancing is like making love -- when you're young you can do it fast and do it many times but you are still experimenting. When you're older -- you can take your time doing what you know feels good for you and for your partner (audience) all night long. -- unknown

Don't just do something, stand there! -- Martha Graham

Form is much, but feeling is much more. -- Doris Humphrey

Fusion is nature's evolution. Personally, I have always known that to be a copy is never as interesting as to be an original. People can take it or leave it. -- Delilah

Gotta dance! (Don Lockwood [Gene Kelly] in Singin' in the Rain)

I also had a will that let me eliminate everything that stood in the way of my becoming the best dancer I could be. By a gradual process...I had invested every bit of my dreams, my hopes, my energies in defining myself as a dancer -- Twyla Tharpe

I can only believe in a God who dances -- Nietzsche

I have lived so long because in those moments when I am dancing I am beyond time and space. -- Ruth St Denis

I have the gift of beauty within me. I've always known that my only duty was to express it to the world. All I've ever done is to express the truth of my being in gesture & movement. I've always known that was what I was put on earth to do. -- Isadora Duncan

I intend to work for this dance of the future. I do not know whether I have the necessary qualities; I may have neither genius nor talent nor temperament. But I know that I have a Will; and will and energy sometimes prove greater than either genius or talent or temperament. -- Isadora Duncan

If a dancer is very good, when she enters she will proudly walk onstage and walk in a large circle around the stage to greet her audience before she starts to dance. If she is very, very good, she will do it TWICE. -- Bert Balladine, backstage at a show

Life just is. You have to flow with it. Give yourself to the moment. Let it happen. -- Jerry Brown

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance. -- anon

Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille: There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. If you block it, it will never exist through any other medium.... It will be lost.... The world will never have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares to other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

No Sane man will dance. -- Cicero (106-- 43 B.C.)

Oh, I suppose it's some kind of an affliction. -- Ginger Rogers, on her determination to be a dancer.

Once your feet hit the stage, it’s too late to practice, it's too late to prepare. All that is left is to Dance. -- Aziza Sa'id

One of the most basic of all patterns is circling and turning. It is in harmony with nature and the universe, with day following night, with the turning of the seasons, with the rotations of the earth and the planets. .. with procreation. These primitive patterns constantly re-occur in the Belly Dance. -- Excerpted from Maria Morca's Belly Dance basic course work kit copyright 1975

People don't come to a show to feel the way they did when they left home. They come to a show to be taken ... somewhere ... to feel something different. Take them on a journey. Take them to far away places. Take them into your soul. If you make them feel... if you move them... they will be satisfied. -- Aziza Sa'id

Raqs Sharqi -- the dancer IS the final instrument. -- Donna

Safety pins are a bellydancers best friend -- anonymous

Serious dance is very ancient, but as art it is relatively new, except possibly in some old asiatic cultures. And as art it creates the image of pulsating organic life which formerly it was expected to give and sustain. Each creative person carries with them their own characteristic theme. The shape of the individual's inner experience will also have the unique, magnetic power of transmission which makes it possible to draw other persons, the participating spectators, into the magic circle of creation. -- Susanne K. Langer -- 1953

She danced the dance of flames and fire, and the dance of swords and spears; she danced the dance of stars and the dance of space, and then she danced the dance of flowers in the wind. -- Khalil Gibran 'the Wanderer'

There are shortcuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. -- Vicki Baum

The audiences ears hear the music, and their eyes see you being that music. Dance is the music made visible. You ARE the music! -- Morocco

The body says what words cannot. -- Martha Graham, interview, 'The New York Times', March 31, 1985

The dance is a poem of which every movement is a word. -- Mata Hari

The Music is the Master. Wait... Breathe... Listen... Find your feeling... Then dance. -- Aziza Sa'id

The only reason for mastering technique is to make sure the body does not prevent the soul from expressing itself. -- La Meri

The only sin is mediocrity. -- Martha Graham, quoted in 'The New York Times', March 31, 1985

The soul is not really united unless all the bodily energies, all the limbs of the body are united. -- Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher not known for his dance criticism.

The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. -- Annes De Mille

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and becuase there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost -- Martha Graham

This dance is about the experience of being human. Joy - sadness - longing - playful invitation - love - ambivalence - anger - silliness - pride - deep happiness - wonder - surprise - aloof distance - delight - cool reserve - desire - loss... These things, as much as hip lifts, are the tools of our trade. -- Aziza Sa'id

This point of being a mature artist (is) where realism replaces fantasy, where hopes never diminish, where the love of art is more passionate than ever. And yet that which we love has brought us a lot of suffering, because the life of an artist is often uncompromising at times. It’s brought us a lot of pain, a lot of angst. And yet no matter what it’s brought, the love of your craft will overpower it all. (Because when) you see life, you see dance. You see feeling. We change the meaning of the words of our vocabulary with age. -- Ibriham Farrah

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking. -- Agnes De Mille

To learn to dance by practicing dancing or to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. . . . One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. -- Martha Graham, May 15, 1945

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other. -- Jack Handey

To me, this acquirement of nervous, physical, and emotional concentration is the one element possessed to the highest degree by the truly great dancers of the world. Its acquirement is the result of discipline, of energy in the deep sense. That is why there are so few great dancers. -- Martha Graham

To the universe belongs the dancer, who ever does not dance does not know what happens. -- Jesus Christ, from the Round Dance of the Cross, Acts of John

Too much technique makes for a robot; too much improvisation makes for a sloppy body -- Merce Cunningham

We can dance to anything, even your drumming. -- Fortune's Rhythm dancers to drummers of any other group.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. -- Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra

What makes me KEEP IT UP well I am not sure I just know that when I hear the music it reaches my inner most soul and I gotta dance. -- Hanaa' umm Abdullah -- aka Yvonne Bieber

When shall we live if not now? -- M. F. K. Fisher

When you are on stage, remember why you dance. Remember to love dancing. Nothing reaches an audience like joy. -- Aziza Sa'id

Whenever the elements of good musicians, good dancing and good surroundings are combined, a dynamic and exciting dancer can transmit not just a performance, but an experience. She can infuse an audience with the same sensuousness and elation of spirit that she herself is feeling. And she and the audience can transcend into pure enjoyment. Without tricks! Without gimmicks! Without sex-- tease! -- Excerpted from Maria Morca's BellyDance work kit, copyright 1975.

Where a dancer stands, that spot is holy ground. -- Martha Graham

You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls. -- Merce Cunningham