Love Quote by Suzanne Farrell

Movement, for Suzanne Farrell, isn’t a decorative flourish; it’s the engine. Her line is almost comically plainspoken, but that’s the point: it refuses the romantic myth that great dancers are driven by some rarefied idea of “art.” She names two motives that sound ordinary - music and the urge to move - and in doing so, she quietly asserts a philosophy of craft. The body is not a vehicle for concepts; it’s an instrument responding to rhythm, impulse, and appetite.

The syntax gives away the deeper truth. “But what was my motivation was music” trips over itself, like someone speaking from muscle memory rather than polishing an anecdote for the press. That slight clumsiness reads as authenticity: motivation isn’t a thesis statement, it’s a physical fact. Then she doubles down with the repetition: “move around... always moving around.” It’s less explanation than insistence, the verbal equivalent of marking steps in a studio, unable to stay still long enough to intellectualize her own drive.

Context matters here because Farrell’s career sits at the crossroads of discipline and desire: a Balanchine ballerina known for speed, musicality, and a kind of expansive, restless presence. In ballet - a form obsessed with control, line, and restraint - “always moving around” hints at an internal surplus, an energy that can’t be fully contained by etiquette or narrative roles. Subtext: the real calling isn’t applause, legacy, or even “expression.” It’s the compulsive, almost involuntary need to answer music with motion, again and again, until the body becomes the argument.