Sixty Years of Twyla Tharp Creativity, A Gift to Dance and Music

Twyla Tharp: The name is distinctive and memorable. So too is the list of accolades the choreographer has accumulated in her six decades of output. Now, at 83, the Tony/MacArthur/Primetime Emmy/Kennedy Center/Guggenheim Award-winner remains a bold and uncompromising force in the dance world. For her Diamond Jubilee tour, which will play The Soraya’s Great Hall in two upcoming performances, February 22 and 23, Tharp has fashioned a program to celebrates her tenure as one of America’s most distinguished creators.

This is not a “greatest hits” program, nor a retrospective. The evening offers two works from different stages in her career. The first from 1998, “Diabelli,” is one of her most profound, a musical exploration set to Beethoven’s nearly hour-long solo piano work, “Diabelli Variations.” The second work, “Slacktide,” is brand new, staged to chamber music by one of our most celebrated and influential living composers, Philip Glass.

Beginning in 1965, Tharp choreographed for an all-female group she irreverently labeled “a bunch of broads doing God’s work.” From her tough-minded pieces that challenged rather than entertained, she began to expand horizons. By the late 1960s, she was placing her dancers in museum galleries and outdoor settings long before “site-specific” became a common term.

Her company – Twyla Tharp Dance – was one of the wonders of the dance world in the seventies and eighties. She added dancers and included men—all exceptional, individual performers. Inspired by their talent, Tharp created a steady stream of inventive works in a distinctive style that comingled technical virtuosity with vernacular moves, the dancers capable of speed and intricacy, yet exuding nonchalance and theatrical flair.

It was when Tharp began to branch out, choreographing for ballet companies, that her force field emerged. Robert Joffrey was the first to spot her potential, and her 1973 “Deuce Coupe,” steeped in the exhilarating mashup of the Beach Boys and ballet, became a Joffrey Ballet signature. This approach, pop culture through the prism of dance, came naturally to Tharp, as she grew up in Rialto, California bagging popcorn at the family drive-in movie theater.

In 1976, Mikhail Baryshnikov – newly arrived in the USA – teamed with Tharp for the hugely popular “Push Comes to Shove.” During his tenure as artistic director of American Ballet Theatre, he commissioned several Tharp works.  It is safe to say the ABT dancers still have Tharp running in their bloodstream.

Branching out into film (Hair, Amadeus, both for director Miloš Forman) and Broadway (her Tony Award-winning Movin’ Out, which ran on Broadway three years, to the music of Billy Joel), Tharp planted her flag firmly in both the artistic and the commercial sectors/spaces.  In her “spare time” she has penned four books full of insights about creativity and the human body, her most recent is KEEP IT MOVING: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life. Like Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse, she is that rare choreographer widely known beyond the confines of the dance world, achieving the ultimate status: she’s a dance brand.

The Soraya program’s “Diabelli” is a major but little-seen work from 1998 with an interesting history. During the 1990s, Tharp was on a creative tear. (Her roster of works, 1995 – 2000, is astonishing.) There was a full-length ballet for London’s august Royal Ballet, several works for ABT, a commission for the Australian Ballet. All the while, Tharp continued to form short-term groups (called Tharp!) that toured worldwide. It was on these eleven dancers that Tharp first noodled to Beethoven’s mighty piano score. “Diabelli” was performed only a handful of times, mostly in Europe. In London it picked up an Olivier Award for Best Dance Production.  Since then, it has not been seen on any stage – until now.  At The Soraya, Beethoven’s majestic music will be performed by pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev.

Jessica Lang, a busy and highly respected choreographer, danced for Tharp in 1998 and appeared in the premiere of “Diabelli.” “It was intense. She was demanding,” she recalls about the experience. “We were immersed in it for two months. She really loved and valued the music; she encouraged us to get the score and understand the music. That dance was uniquely Tharp. It gave us identity and individuality and humanity.”

A newly assembled hand-picked dance ensemble will deliver these two challenging and contrasting works. Some qualify as Tharp veterans – Reed Tankersley has worked on Tharp projects since his senior year at The Juilliard School. Others have taken leaves of absence from Martha Graham Dance Company and Miami City Ballet, for the opportunity to work with Tharp.

The current ensemble was coached by original “Diabelli” cast members while simultaneously learning Tharp’s “Slacktide” to the Glass score. Tankersley calls the Glass work “a tour de force” that “feels very Tharp. There’s her humor, her quirky movement, but also classical partnering. She likes the theme-and-variations form.”

Tharp and Philip Glass collaborated previously, in 1986. Returning to Glass’s music for this anniversary, Tharp was drawn to his lyrical and contemplative “Aguas da Amazonia,” composed in 1993 and performed by Third Coast Percussion in a new arrangement created for the occasion.

Speaking while “Slacktide” was still taking shape, Tankersley notes its “different moods and energies. It changes as it goes on. A lot of it is pulled from improvisations she’s done herself, on video.”

“She’s a dynamic, intense, creative human being; a remarkable artist who’s been completely dedicated and inspiring,” says Jessica Lang. Reed Tankersley observes, “At this point in her life, I think she always is more interested in creation, making new things. It’s incredible seeing her in her creative element and seeing how it all pieces together.”