It started sixty years ago with a ragtag troupe of dancers performing in the streets, long before site-specific was a thing. Back then, Twyla Tharp Dance was just “a bunch of broads doing God’s work,” as Tharp put it. Today, with a shelf full of accolades—a Tony, MacArthur Genius Grant, Emmy, Kennedy Center Honors, a Guggenheim Fellowship—she’s a household name among modern dance fans, ranked with icons like Duncan, Graham, Balanchine, Robbins and Cunningham as one of the medium’s most vital practitioners. While those other legends have passed, Tharp remains alive and kicking, celebrating her company’s diamond jubilee with a tour that began in Southern California last month and comes to New York’s City Center March 12 through 16.
The program includes two pieces: 1998’s Diabelli, an exploration of Beethoven’s nearly hour-long solo piano work Diabelli Variations, and a new piece, SLACKTIDE, set to Philip Glass’ 1993 chamber piece, Aguas da Amazônia and performed by Third Coast Percussion in a new arrangement made for the occasion.
“I think the piece was created with Diabelli in mind, so it works well as a pair,” says dancer Daisy Jacobson who, in 2022, guested with the company and performed in the revival of In The Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs before later dancing in Tharp’s Ocean’s Motion and Ballet Master at The Joyce. “At the start of SLACKTIDE, there’s a movement the dancer does on stage that’s the last movement of Upper Room, and she said that to us outright. It’s much more free than Diabelli, which is really contained and stoic and stark.”
Along with Bach’s Goldberg Variations, The 33 Variations on a Waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, written by Beethoven for the piano, is commonly considered to be one of the greatest sets of variations for keyboard. For the dancers, it’s easily the program’s most demanding entry.
“I try to find a different task or thought process for each variation, a new character for each. So starting over, but keeping what I had in previous variations throughout,” says dancer Miriam Gittens who, like Jacobson, graduated from Juilliard before going on to dance with Detroit Opera and New York’s Gibney Company, where she is an artistic associate. “Most of us stay with our partners from beginning to end. So, that is a demanding thing, keeping that connection but also being aware there are nine other dancers around you.”
Both dancers found it physically and mentally challenging. As the moves are sustained by muscle memory, the main question for the dancers is how to keep them fresh, reinventing them at the beginning of each new variation, each new venue and each new city.
“It’s like a ballet in its setup,” says Jacobson. “There’s a women’s section and a men’s section. The variations keep going and you have to keep so focused to keep it alive for almost an hour—a lot of counting.”
Before working with Tharp, Jacobson danced with LA Dance Project under choreographer Benjamin Millepied, where she worked with a dancer named Charlie Hodges who had previously worked with Tharp. She never dreamed she would get the chance to dance for the legend but soon found herself auditioning.
SEE ALSO: What to Watch in London’s Spring Art Auctions
“It felt unreal because people in my life, mentors and friends, had talked so much about her, how she had affected the way they dance and work,” she recalls about the audition. “I was nervous mostly because I was in New York on tour with LA Dance Project, and I had a show that night. I had to be really focused on the present. She was great. It was normal. It didn’t feel like an audition. It felt like we were working together. At the time, I was really looking for rigor and intensity that was lacking in my previous job. She reminded me of my teachers at Juilliard, how they love what they do, are obsessed with dance, very dedicated.”
Gittens was going about her normal routine dancing with Gibney Company when one day, she received an email saying Tharp was going to observe her class. She showed up on a Thursday and found the 81-year-old legend sitting in a chair. She stayed through the class and said thank you at the end.
“None of us really knew what was going on,” recalls the dancer. “Maybe she was doing research. Honestly, it was a little bit nerve-wracking to have someone watching ballet class. But because there was nothing tied to it, it wasn’t like an audition.”
A few days later, Gittens and one of her colleagues received an email saying Tharp was interested in working with them for her February 2024 show. “It was unexpected and nothing that I’d planned for. It kind of unfolded in a natural and beautiful and exciting way.”
For Jacobson, the Southern California stops were a treat, catching up with old friends and colleagues from her LA Dance Project days. But both dancers are most looking forward to the City Center performances. And both bring with them lessons learned from an illustrious mentor whose work ranges from American Ballet Theatre to Miloš Forman’s 1984 Oscar-winner, Amadeus, to Broadway’s Billy Joel jukebox musical Movin’ Out.
“She’s constantly searching and curious for different things in her work and her dancers,” notes Gittens. “There’s a reason someone would have a career for this long. Constant curiosity and growth and care for the work, I think that’s the thing that was most impactful and inspiring. It should be the only way you do this career, searching for something different rather than ever becoming stagnant or stale in anything. You have to dare to have your own opinion and do your thing.”
