Twyla Tharp

Scott Gesford and Ryan Siebrasse

Twyla Tharp was born July 1, 1941 in Portland, IN.  Her father was a construction manager and her mother taught piano.  By age two Tharp, had begun piano lessons, and by age four, she had begun lessons in jazz, tap and ballet.  At the insistence of her mother, Tharp studied a variety of performing arts skills including baton twirling, drum, violin, viola, and painting.  A tireless work ethic and a strong sense of eclecticism that continued through her professional career had begun.

            Tharp studied at Barnard College in New York City.  Though her major would eventually be art history, Tharp avidly studied dance while simultaneously pursuing her degree.  Her early influences were primarily women and they included Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman, Doris Humphrey, Ruth St. Denis, and Martha Graham. Later while studying at the American Ballet Theatre School, Tharp worked alongside Paul Taylor, Erick Hawkins, and Merce Cunningham.  Tharp made her professional dancing debut with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1963.

            In 1965, Tharp created Twyla Tharp Dance, a company Tharp still maintains.  Twyla Tharp Dance currently tours nationally and internationally.

            Tharp has received seventeen honorary doctorate degrees, and continues to direct, choreograph and produce actively.  Her latest project is helming the national tour of her most recent project on Broadway, Movin’ Out,

Style

When it was founded, the Twlya Tharp Dance focused on what Tharp identified as “the right angle, the diagonal, the spiral, and the circle.”    Tharp’s distinctive style blends traditional training with “idiosyncratic gestures, clear structure, and consistent entertainment.”

The Hall of Arts writes of Tharp’s style:

Twyla Tharp's work combined a classical discipline and rigor with avant-garde iconoclasm, combined ballet technique with natural movements like running, walking and skipping. If modern dance was supposed to be serious and spiritual, Twyla's was humorous and edgy. She worked less often with contemporary avant-garde music than with classical music, contemporary pop songs, a clicking metronome, or silence. Always, the choreography was dynamic, unpredictable and underpinned by an unusually thorough musical intelligence.

Broadway

            In 1980, Tharp began a short, but poignant list of Broadway credits.  When We Were Very Young was followed in 1981 by The Catharine Wheel.  Though running for over a year and spawning a national tour, her staging and choreography of the film hit Singin’ in the Rain brought neither critical nor financial success.  Following this miss, Tharp vowed never to direct an existing work for the Broadway stage again.  Nearly twenty years later in 2002, Tharp conceived, directed and choreographed a compilation of Billy Joel tunes entitled Movin’ Out.  This dance musical features a single performer singing at a piano on a centerstage platform while a series of stories play onstage as performed by stage.

Credits

Twyla Tharp has choreographed more than one hundred twenty five dances, five Hollywood movies, directed and choreographed two Broadway shows, written two books and received one Tony Award and two Emmy Awards.