Dancers are the messengers of the gods.

In this aphorism, Graham elevates dance from entertainment to vocation: the dancer becomes a conduit for forces larger than the self—myth, spirit, collective emotion, and the “numinous” dimensions of human experience. The phrase “messengers of the gods” frames movement as a kind of embodied language capable of carrying truths that words cannot. It also reflects Graham’s modernist conviction that dance can disclose inner necessity and archetypal drama through the body’s expressive power. Read this way, the quote underscores the ethical seriousness of performance: dancers do not merely display technique; they transmit meaning, intensity, and revelation to an audience.