Twyla Tharp dance is at the David H. Koch Theater November 17 through 22.
at 74, choreographer Twyla Tharp is overdue for a breather: She’s created more than 160 works for classical ballet companies; her own modern troupe, Twyla Tharp Dance; and Broadway. But for her group’s golden anniversary, the dance icon is touring with two major new pieces: Preludes and Fugues, set to pieces from Bach, and Yowzie, propelled by a jazz score. Here, Tharp explains how her artistic past has informed her still very active present.
It’s allconnected
“The first musical lesson I had was the keyboard,” Tharp says, “so the feel of music was programmed into my hands. I also played viola, which means the rhythm of the bow, the pull of the muscles of the back, is something I feel. Movement produces all the other art forms.”
An art for everyone
Growing up in Indiana, Tharp worked, and learned, at her parents’ drive-in movie theater. “[The actors’] movements were designed for a wide public base, and I’ve always understood that to be a possibility. What I do should communicate something to everybody. I’m the old-fashioned showman.”
Feeling is knowing
To help achieve that inclusiveness, Tharp’s movements are often grounded in pedestrian gestures. “Folks can connect with simple actions: running, walking, skipping, hopping. They know what that feels like.”
Steps alone aren’t style
Despite her ideas about what audiences respond to, Tharp dismisses any notion of having a distinct style. “If I knew what that was, I would avoid it,” she says. Instead, her approach is “about reconfirmation and reanalyzing whether something is truly necessary” in a given dance.
Experience complicates things
“My first piece had very little movement; that’s all I believed I knew. I’ve changed, but it’s not made it any easier, because the more tools you have, the more you want to use them.”