MARTHA GRAHAM IN A 1973 MONITOR INTERVIEW

`When I start a dance, I'm absorbed with an idea, because my ideas deal with theater as a very definite and stong impulse in life. I believe that the word ``theater'' was a verb before it was a noun: It was an act before it was a place, and all of my works deal with life rather than design.'

`You are unique and so am I. If you do not fulfill that uniqueness, it is lost to the world. No matter how uncomfortable it may be, you must pay your debts to the life that has been permitted you. And to do it with as much courage as possible.'

`The experience of knowing the body, not just as something lovely to look at, but as a wonder to experience, is the reason dancers are like shells. Shells are a tiny bit of life, an instant of life, that demands a place. And it begins to weave its own house and it makes its own body. A dancer takes about ten years to be made - ten years of constant daily work for the body to be so steady and strong that you are not afraid of it any longer. But this is only the beginning. Edgar Varese, the composer, said ``Martha, everyone is born with genius, but some people only keep it for a few minutes.'' That is the demand - to keep it.'