Judith Jamison Quotes

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

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

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.

Dance is about never-ending aspiration.

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

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?

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.

One you've danced, you always dance.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The word 'suffering' is not in my vocabulary.

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.

Excellence is the name of the game.

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.

Every dancer lives on the threshold of chucking it.

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

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

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.

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