Dance
At the Moss Center: Twyla Tharp Talks About Her Company’s 60th Anniversary
From left, Twyla Tharp Dancers Marzia Memoli, Daisy Jacobson, Kyle Halford, Nicole Ashley Morris, Angela Falk, and Oliver Greene-Cramer perform “SLACKTIDE,” choreography by Twyla Tharp. (Photo courtesy of Studio Aura)
Sixty-year anniversaries call for diamonds—gifts celebrated for their endurance and brilliance—and few legacies shine brighter than that of Twyla Tharp Dance, founded in 1965. As the company marks this milestone, Tharp’s influence continues to redefine contemporary dance by pushing the envelope of movement and meaning.
Since graduating from Barnard College in 1963, Tharp, 83, has choreographed more than 160 works, spanning dance, television, film, Broadway, and even figure skating. Her decorated career includes a Tony Award, two Emmys, nineteen honorary doctorates, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor.
On Saturday, March 1 and Sunday, March 2, the Twyla Tharp Company debuts at the Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center in South Miami-Dade with the premiere of Tharp’s newest work, “SLACKTIDE” alongside a revival of her maddeningly complex “Diabelli Variations” performed only four times, the last in 1999.
From left, Twyla Tharp dancers Molly Rumble, Miriam Gittens and Reed Tankersley perform “SLACKTIDE,” choreography by Twyla Tharp. (Photo courtesy of Studio Aura)
When asked what he found so compelling about Tharp’s work, Eric Fliss, managing director of the Moss Center, cited its sheer breadth and impact.
“Beyond the numerous pieces she has created for her own company and American Ballet Theatre,” says Fliss, “she has been a driving force behind some of the most successful and iconic productions in dance and theater.”
For those familiar with Tharp’s extensive repertoire—from the kinetic energy of her “Brahms-Handel” to the accessible charm of “Nine Sinatra Songs” and the dynamic intensity of “In the Upper Room”—the Moss program offers a window onto the creative trajectories of her last few decades.
Asked why she chose these two works for her 60th anniversary tour, Tharp emphasized the distinct ways in which they approach the notion of identity.
Originally choreographed by Tharp in 1998 for its premiere at Teatro Biondo in Palermo, Sicily, “Diabelli” was performed only three additional times during 1999 and then not again until its return this month.
Twyla Tharp dancers, Miriam Gitten and Oliver Greene-Cramer. (Photo by Mark Seliger, courtesy of Twyla Tharp Dance Company)
In “Diabelli” Tharp keeps the costuming simple. Ten dancers—balanced between women and men—wear black pants and tops accented with tuxedo dickeys. The staging and lighting are also basic. Pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev has been traveling with the company on the current tour and will perform the “Variations” live at the Moss performances as well.
For Tharp this sets the audience up for an encounter with the music — Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations” (Op. 120). Written between 1819 and 1823, these piano variations take their title from Anton Diabelli, a notable composer of the era who circulated a waltz theme to leading musicians with the intention of collecting variations for a charitable publication benefiting widows and orphans of the Napoleonic wars.
Instead of offering a single variation, Beethoven provided 33 distinct interpretations that continually reinvent the waltz theme. Many critics have placed Beethoven’s piece alongside Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” as among the greatest set of variations ever written for keyboard.
For each of Beethoven’s 33 variations, Tharp has offered in “Diabelli” a distinct choreographic response.
When asked how she approached structuring the rhythmic complexities of Beethoven’s work, Tharp explains that she focused on two features that pervade the variations – transformation and opposition.
“It (“Diabelli”) works basically the same way Beethoven’s (piece) works, which is transformation of a given theme,” explains Tharp. “So it progresses to build on a very limited body of material. And how does one do that? In Beethoven’s world, there’s always the juxtaposition of opposite forces. And that’s why there’s huge drama in his music. And so it makes it very theatrically inclined.”
The Twyla Tharp Dance Company performs in its 60th Anniversary Jubilee on Saturday, March 1 and 3 p.m., Sunday, March 2. (Photo by Mark Seliger, courtesy of Twyla Tharp Dance Company)
The work also takes Tharp back to the start of her career. For instance, Beethoven’s “Variation 32”, structured as a fugue, marks a return to techniques Tharp developed in her breakthrough 1969 work for three dancers, “Fugue.”
“That is why I called the “Fugue” from 1969, the first of the Opus, because it was and is a study of fugal techniques,” says Tharp. “So when I work with this material, like Beethoven, I have a familiarity with these techniques for varying and for supporting thematic material. With the Beethoven there is this transformative situation where the material exists and then is reformulated, but retains an identity,” she says.
The second work on the Moss program — “SLACKTIDE” – is the first time in 40 years Tharp has worked with the music of Philip Glass, since she set her groundbreaking, “In the Upper Room,” to the 1987 Glass composition of the same name.
Tharp set her newest work to Glass’s score, “Aguas de Amazonia” —a 10-part suite composed between 1993 and 1999 using a new arrangement of the work by Third Coast Percussion ensemble. Based in Chicago, it is the first percussion ensemble to win a Grammy Award.
The slack tide is the short period of time when water lies suspended between opposing forces—when there is no movement either way in the tidal stream.
Twyla Tharp dancer Oliver Greene-Cramer performs “SLACKTIDE,” choreography by Twyla Tharp. (Photo courtesy of Studio Aura)
The water imagery in both the music and choreography titles might lead one to expect an environmental message in “SLACKTIDE.” However, for Tharp, any reference to nature merely supports her expression of a certain notion of reality formulated through movement.
“The “SLACKTIDE” is my second piece on Phil Glass’s music,” says Thapr, “and it also entails identifiable entities. “In The Upper Room” Glass acknowledges different orders of being – the grounded and the aerial. And (“In the Upper Room”) these identities exist in opposition to one another. With the new Glass piece (“Aguas de Amazonia”), there are identities, but they exist in a coordinated form. They’re not in opposition.”
Those familiar with both works by Glass will note that “Aguas” constantly quotes themes from “In the Upper Room”. Though Tharp acknowledges the continuity between the Glass compositions, “SLACKTIDE” differs markedly from her choreography for “In the Upper Room” since it operates from an entirely different conception of reality.
“It (“SLACKTIDE”) is about geometry and space in time,” explains Tharp. “And it is about a different notion of identity, how there can be black and a white, and yet there can also be a condition where the black and the white are so closely identified that there is one entity – and it’s not gray. It is black and white very closely identified.”
“Tharp’s choreography balances humor, playfulness, and virtuosic movement.” says Fliss when asked how he thought Moss audiences would respond to the program, “(It) offers multiple ways for audiences to engage with the performance. Regardless of how one approaches the program, it is undeniably special to experience this work in Miami.”
WHAT: Twyla Tharp Dance 60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee
WHERE: The Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211 St., Miami
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, March 1, and 3 p.m. Sunday, March 2.
COST: $25, $45, $57.50, and $67.50
INFORMATION: 786-573-5300 or www.mosscenter.org
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