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Daily Inspiration Quote by Graeme Murphy

"No one was creating and I always wanted to be created on"

About this Quote

A small grammatical kink does a lot of work here: Murphy doesn’t say he wanted to create, but to be "created on". In dance, that preposition matters. It places the dancer as material, as surface, as living canvas for someone else’s choreography. The line is less about ego than about hunger for collaboration in a world where the studio can go quiet and stay quiet, where the absence of new work feels like professional suffocation.

The intent reads as both complaint and confession. "No one was creating" points to a stalled ecosystem: companies playing safe, choreographers repeating themselves, institutions conserving resources. But Murphy’s pivot - "and I always wanted" - makes it personal and slightly exposed. He isn’t positioning himself as the visionary denied; he’s naming a desire to be used, shaped, risked. That’s a dancer’s version of ambition: not the spotlight, but the chance to be transformed by a strong artistic mind.

The subtext is about agency. To be "created on" can sound passive, even submissive, yet in performance it’s a power move. It implies readiness, technique, trust, and the willingness to let your body become an argument. Murphy is also quietly asserting standards: he wants serious makers around him, not just work, but work that requires a dancer to change.

Contextually, it fits a mid-to-late 20th-century arts landscape where innovation depended on bodies in rooms, not brands on billboards. When creation slows, a dancer’s future narrows. Murphy’s line snaps that anxiety into something blunt, almost tactile: if nobody is making, he can’t become.

Quote Details

TopicArt
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Graeme Murphy: on being created and creating
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About the Author

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Graeme Murphy (born November 2, 1950) is a Dancer from Australia.

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