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Informationen zum Autor Twyla Tharp, one of America’s greatest choreographers began her career in 1965, and has created more than 130 dances for her company as well as for the Joffrey Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Paris Opera Ballet, London’s Royal Ballet, Denmark’s Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. She has won two Emmy Awards for television’s Baryshnikov by Tharp , and a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Movin’ Out. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1993 and was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. She holds nineteen honorary degrees, most recently from Harvard University. She lives and works in New York City. Klappentext One of the world’s legendary artists shares her secrets—from insight to action—for harnessing vitality, finding purpose as you age. Leseprobe Chapter 1: Terms and Conditions Twenty years ago, I wrote a book called The Creative Habit , sharing the message that we can all live creative lives if only we could stop waiting for a muse to arrive with divine inspiration and instead just get down to work. In other words, you too can be more creative if you are willing to sweat a little. This message still resonates when I lecture. But, interestingly, the question I am most often asked after a talk these days is on a different topic entirely: “How do you keep working?” The subtext here, sotto voce , is “… at your age?” Which is seventy-eight. To me it is simple. I continue to work as I always have, expecting each day to build on the one before. And I do not see why I should not continue to work in this spirit. Keep It Moving is intended to encourage those who wish to maintain their prime a very long time. Like most books of practical advice, it identifies a “disease” and offers a cure. That disease, simply put, is our fear of time passing and the resulting aging process. The remedy? The book in your hands. I flirted with the idea of calling this book The Youth Habit. I liked the suggestion that youth’s virtues could be easily transplanted into our post-youth years if only we followed a routine: take the stairs, use sunscreen, ingest more omega-3s and fewer omega-6s, don’t shortchange yourself on sleep. Cut out sugar, do something nice for someone else daily, floss, read more, watch less, love the one you’re with, and it’s okay to drink wine (until the next study says it isn’t). Sounded like a bestseller to me. But if experience has taught me anything, it’s that chasing youth is a losing proposition. There’s little benefit in looking back, at least not with yearning or nostalgia or any other melancholy humor. To look back is to cling to something well over and behind you. We don’t lose youth. Youth stays put. We move on. We need to face the fact that aging will happen to us along with everybody else and just get on with it. Growing older is a strange stew of hope, despair, courage—still I think you will agree—it is light-years ahead of the alternative. I don’t promise eternal youth in Keep It Moving. I have no interest in sugarcoating the aging process. What I believe in is change and the vitality it brings. Vitality means moving through life with energy and vigor, making deliberate choices and putting to good use the time and energy that we have been granted. You have, no doubt, seen people in their late seventies or even into their nineties who don’t seem worn out by their years but instead welcome the opportunity to be truly present in their bodies and in their minds. Instead of stubbornly staying on known paths, afraid to stray, they look at what comes next with curiosity, expanding into whatever it may be. So, no, ...
