Daily Inspiration Quote by Twyla Tharp

Tharp’s line lands like a quiet rebuke to the idea that rigor has to come with a velvet rope. She’s pushing back on the cultural reflex that “serious” art must be difficult, coded, or socially gated to count. The first two sentences are defensive in the best way: she’s naming the twin sins modern dance has been accused of for decades - intimidating the uninitiated, performing sophistication as exclusion. By repeating “I have not wanted,” she frames accessibility as an ethical choice, not a marketing strategy.

Then she swivels: “That doesn’t mean…” Excellence isn’t being traded away; it’s being reclaimed from the people who use difficulty as a status symbol. The subtext is a critique of a certain avant-garde posture where obscurity becomes proof of intelligence. Tharp insists the opposite: technique can be ferocious and still legible, emotionally direct, even fun. Her choreography has always lived in that hybrid zone - classical discipline spliced with pedestrian movement, Broadway snap, pop timing - a vocabulary that welcomes viewers without patronizing them.

Context matters: Tharp came up when dance was splitting between institutional ballet prestige and modern dance’s sometimes hermetic seriousness, later crossing into mainstream stages without apologizing for craft. The quote reads like a mission statement for a democratic virtuosity: make it open, make it sharp, make it undeniable. She’s not lowering the bar; she’s widening the room.