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Book Review: The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp

“The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightining bolt of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone. … Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell.” –Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit p. 10

WOW! When I picked this book up at the bookstore, I intended only to see if I wanted to order this book up via inter-library loan to read. Less than five minutes later, I knew I’d be buying it on that visit. I hesitate to tell you how many pages (most of them, by a long shot) have highlighter on them…..

The book is Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit,: Learn it and Use it for Life; click this link to see it on amazon. For those who don’t know her, Twyla Tharp is one of North America’s (and world’s) preeminent choreographers. She has created dances with the Joffrey, NYCity Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, London’s Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theatre (ABT)–talk about a Pantheon of modern ballet! She worked on Amadeus, won two Emmy’s for a TV program called Baryshnikov by Tharp… the list goes on and on, and includes an on-Broadway musical she developed to the music of Billy Joel. Wow…

Her book is riveting for me, not least because it echoes so much of what I believe about creativity. My bottom line is that ANYone can be and IS creative. Anyone can make art…and good art at that. You just have to devote the time it takes to learn the skills, then develop them.

I was going to do an all-in-one review here, but as I took notes of my highlightings last night, I realized I’m going to do a short review here, then periodically post quotes of things I find wonderful…..

The book covers how Twyla Tharp works, from walking into an empty dance studio (the equivalent would be a blank page for a writer or an empty design wall for textile artists), to rituals of preparation, your innate design sense, using your memories, organizing your ideas and inspirations, learning the necessary skills, learning how to encourage the muse to visit (she calls it scratching for ideas), recognizing an idea when you see it, fleshing out the idea into a piece, refining your skills, differentiating between being stuck in a rut and zoning in a good groove, learning from your failures.

She also includes exercises at the end of each chapter to help spur you on, exercises that she uses to get her doing during dry spells (and yes, we all have them).

I know I’ll be coming back to this book time and again…there are many words of wisdom here. I’ll leave with with what may be my favorite quote from the entire book (and which I think I posted on the blog a while back, or was it on an e-list?), and promise to post more good quotes every so often:

p. 173:

“Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.”

2 Responses to “Book Review: The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp”

  1. Sioux Says:

    I read it this spring. It is a wonderful book!!

  2. Brenda Says:

    After reading your post, I went out and bought a copy of Twyla’s book and devoured it on my long flight home to Australia. I too have highlighted page 173!