Judith Jamison Quotations

Since babyhood, I've always evolved from one thing to another. My mother gave me ballet lessons at 6 as part of her enthusiasm for the arts and for life. We went to museums, to the theater. While her own talent was untapped, she worked for church causes.

One thing I cannot stand is when people say, 'Hi, how are you?' and they don't wait to hear how I am. They're just going through the motions. I say to people: 'Keep it human. Keep it alive. Don't turn into a robot.' You have to hear what the other person is saying clearly.

I don't think of myself as a leader. I am, but I don't think of myself that way. I'm not trying to belittle what I do, but I think of myself as a dancer first. I'll always be a dancer.

I went to an audition for a Harry Belafonte Roaring Twenties special for choreographer Donald McKayle, but I failed.

My wonderful editor, Jackie Onassis, asked me to write a book that I wanted to write. I said, 'Look, it's not going to be scandalized. I'm not going to talk about anybody like a dog. I'm going to say the positiveness of my life, and talk about those who have contributed to the way I've been going, and that's that.'

My idea for the Jamison Project was rather like a pickup company. The idea was to give the dancers a taste of the menu. Today, dancers need to try as many companies as possible without having a drop-dead loyalty to me or anyone else. They like to have the leeway to go their own way.

I tell young people that people aren't just going to flock to you as your mentors. You have to seek them out. It could be your next-door neighbor; it could be somebody upstairs from you, somebody down the block from you. An aunt or an uncle. Some relative. A parent.

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

I was only interested in the look, not the time of day. And how things would evolve for the young people.

We're dancing from here, from inside, not from outside. You could look at anybody throwing their leg and kick their leg up and a million pirouettes and do all kinds of tricks and stuff like that. But that's not what dance is really about.

You have to dance unencumbered. There's no other way to move. The idea of dance is freedom. It is not exclusiveness, it's inclusiveness.

I smelled the same smells as a kid growing up in my little house in Philadelphia. My father used the basement as his craft shop. And when I smelled the wood and saw the shine of the stainless steel set, it brought a tear to my eye.

The way Alvin Ailey has transformed modern dance and dance in general is the fact of variety. It's a cornucopia of ways to move. There are choreographers in the company as - as diverse, as different from each other as Donald McKayle and Bill T. Jones, or Jawole Zollar and John Butler, Lar Lubovitch, you know, and Judith Jamison.

People don't remember me for how high my legs went, even though they went up very high, and how many pirouettes I did. They don't remember me for that. They remember me and any other dancer because something touched them inside. It's an indelible memory on the heart and in the mind.

One couldn't ask for better support in an executive director. I am able to focus on what the dream can be, not how much the dream will cost me.

As a dancer, you really try to stay true to whatever the choreographer/artistic director is giving you. So, now the shoe is on the other foot and I have to trust everyone else - I have to trust the dancer. As I was trusted as a dancer, I trust my dancers.

As a dancer, he was quicksilver. He moved like a cat.

As long as there are dancers around who love to dance, there will be an Alvin Ailey American Dance Company. We miss him so much, but he's alive as soon as you see a dancer hit the stage.

You wake up white, and you think about certain things every day. You wake up black, and you think about certain things. You wake up Chinese, and you think certain things - but those things aren't major. What's major is that you are good at your craft.

Alvin knew what I would do with it because we worked together for such a long time. It's part of my blood and part of who I am as a human being. Alvin's presence is felt by us all, even the new dancers who never worked with him. And if we do our jobs well, that continues the vision.

Dancing is bigger than the physical body. Think bigger than that. 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.

Dancers use their bodies in extraordinary ways, so we are chronically pre-arthritic, because of how we use our muscles and our bones.

Don't call me a star. Call me a dancer.

Strive for perfection. Nobody's going to be perfect on this earth. But strive for perfection.

It's a mood piece about love and relationship, like a slice- of life- pie at 2 a.m. with episodes that happen quickly.

I've had a really charmed life, you know. Things always come to me - they just do.

The world is full of ways for people to dance. Concert dance doesn't get its due.

At 10, I could walk down the street and see over everybody's head. I don't remember being little or having to look up at people. I think I was born 5 feet 10. It's not that I felt especially tall. I was wondering when everybody else was going to catch up.

I'm very smart when it comes to choosing dancers and trying to show the world that there's a whole lot of dancing going on.

If people all over the world, year after year, request that you do 'Revelations,' you do 'Revelations.'

I could say now at 66, yeah, I was a fabulous dancer. I was really terrific, you know. But I was always present. I was present. I was supposed to be where I was supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be.

I believe God has a path for me. He's always had a path for me, and I've always been in the right place at the right time - not because of my efforts, but because of my preparation and because of the guides that I have, the mentors that I have, the spiritual walkers that I've had all my life.

I believe in being prepared. I'm going to say that. Pray, prepare, proceed.

He played classical piano, sang opera and was a carpenterall as an amateur. But what he did was extraordinary.

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

Excellence is the name of the game...

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

The word 'suffering' is not in my vocabulary.

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.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

One you have danced, you always dance.

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.

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.

Dance is about never-ending aspiration.

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

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.