Twyla Tharp

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• Building audience trust

  “I think that anyone who is successful in communicating with other people gains their trust, gains their confidence that you're not going to screw them.”

  Our noteTwyla talks about the relationship between a creator and their audience.

• Sacred professional bonds

  “It's in a way a kind of sacred bond, okay? You honor your contracts.”

  Our noteTwyla explains her philosophy on professional reliability.

• The hit syndrome

  “Anyone is always asked for their hit because everyone wants to touch upon that which seems to somehow be their greatest accomplishment. It's aggravating.”

  Our noteTalking about how audiences try to keep creators stuck in their past successes.

• Attention through change

  “if you want to constantly be gain... It's a game. You want to be gaining the attention, you do it by change. You don't do it by reinforcing.”

  Our noteExplaining that true attention comes from evolving rather than repeating what worked.

• Dangers of comfort

  “That just creates a comfort zone, and it can build a reputation. It can build a career that gives you more and more of what you expect. But for the person who's making the work, that can kind of be deadly.”

  Our noteWarning against building a career solely on meeting audience expectations.

• Evolution of input

  “In the early era, I went to see absolutely everything. Now I go to see absolutely nothing.”

  Our noteContrasting her early need for broad exposure with her current need for isolation.

• Defining useful work

  “When you're working, you don't know if it's a failure or not. You only know if it's useful. You know if it's exciting. You know if it generates a next question. That's useful.”

  Our noteTwyla discusses how to evaluate creative output during the process.

• Importance of scheduling

  “the one key ingredient I have always found to doing work is you got to be able to do a schedule. You've got to be able to tell people what time they're coming and what shoes to bring.”

  Our noteTwyla explains that structure is the foundation of any creative process.

• Expanding Core Skills

  “He also was capable of taking those chops and expanding on them, breaking through their boundaries, trying it this way, do it that way, but utilizing the power that he had from that simple classical base to take it outward.”

  Our noteTwyla explains how Mikhail Baryshnikov used his classical training to innovate.

• Instinct vs Knowledge

  “instinctively, a piece of art can reach you, but you can be baffled by it. But we don't like confusion, so we might call that something we should learn about before we can acknowledge liking it.”

  Our noteTwyla challenges the idea that we need to study art to appreciate it.