Aging & Wisdom Quote by Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp isn’t selling feel-good positivity here; she’s describing a working dancer’s fuel. “Optimism with some experience behind it” is not naïveté in a leotard. It’s optimism that has been stress-tested: the kind that’s survived injury, flop nights, bad notes, and the slow, unglamorous repetition that actually builds a career. In Tharp’s world, optimism isn’t a personality trait. It’s a discipline, almost a technique.

The sentence is engineered as a contrast between two kinds of credibility. Experience can certify you in two opposite directions: toward momentum or toward a sour, self-protective knowingness. Tharp names the trap performers slip into as they age in the industry: you collect enough evidence that things can go wrong, and cynicism starts to masquerade as sophistication. It feels smart to predict disappointment; it also quietly drains your willingness to risk looking foolish, which is lethal in any art that requires constant reinvention.

“Plain old experience” is a pointed phrase. It demotes mere longevity, the resume without the spark. By adding “some” before experience, she signals that you don’t need total mastery to be energized; you need just enough real-world proof that effort can convert into outcome. The subtext is practical and slightly ruthless: cynicism is an energy tax, and artists already operate on tight margins. Optimism, when earned, becomes a renewable resource.