I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer's

Hear now the words of Martha Graham, the prophetess of modern dance, whose vision shaped the very language of movement: “I did not want to be a tree, a flower or a wave. In a dancer’s body, we as audience must see ourselves—not the imitated behavior of everyday actions, not the phenomenon of nature, not exotic creatures from another planet, but something of the miracle that is a human being.” In this saying, she speaks not only of dance, but of the essence of art itself: that it must be rooted in the truth of our shared humanity, not in mimicry or illusion.

For Graham rejected the easy path of imitation. A dancer may become a tree, bending with the wind, or a wave, flowing with rhythm, but such images, though beautiful, are not the heart of art. They are masks, symbols, echoes of something other. Graham sought something greater—authenticity. She demanded that the dancer’s body reveal not nature, nor fantasy, but the soul of mankind itself. For in every gesture, in every breath, in every leap and fall, there must be the reflection of what it means to be alive, to suffer, to love, to hope.

This truth is as old as tragedy itself. In the plays of Sophocles and Euripides, audiences did not watch merely the retelling of myths—they saw themselves, their own struggles, their own sorrows magnified on the stage. Oedipus was not only a king; he was every man who strives blindly against fate. Antigone was not only a maiden; she was every heart torn between law and love. Likewise, Graham reminds us that in dance, as in all art, the audience does not come to witness the exotic or the otherworldly, but to confront themselves, unveiled and magnified.

Consider also the story of Vaslav Nijinsky, the legendary dancer of the Ballets Russes. When he performed The Rite of Spring, audiences were shocked not by beauty, but by raw, primal truth. His movements were not flowers or birds, but the very heartbeat of humanity, violent and tender, exalted and broken. Though many hissed and stormed from the theater, history remembers it as a revelation: the body on stage had become a mirror of the soul. Nijinsky, like Graham after him, showed that dance is not imitation but incarnation of the miracle of being human.

Yet this is not only a lesson for artists, but for all who live. Too often we are tempted to be something other than ourselves: to copy the tree, to mimic the wave, to hide behind masks and roles. But Graham commands us to stand as we are, to reveal the naked truth of our humanity. For in showing ourselves, we grant others the courage to recognize themselves. Art that imitates entertains, but art that embodies transforms.

What, then, must we do? First, strip away the false imitations in your life. Do not pretend to be more noble, more clever, more exotic than you are. Instead, be authentic. When you speak, let your words carry your true heart. When you act, let your deeds reveal your true nature. And if you create—whether in movement, music, or craft—let your work not copy, but embody. For only then will others see in you not a mask, but a mirror, and through that mirror, the eternal miracle of being human.

Therefore, O seekers, remember Graham’s wisdom: do not become a tree, a flower, or a wave. Do not lose yourself in the imitation of what already is. Instead, dare to reveal what is rarer than all these—the mystery, the fragility, the strength, and the wonder of a human being. For this is the purpose of art, and perhaps of life itself: to remind us, again and again, of the miracle that we exist, and that in one another we may behold the truth of ourselves.