TWYLA THARP DANCE DIAMOND JUBILEE

By Celia Ipiotis

When Twyla Tharp premieres a new work, attention is paid. That’s because of Tharp’s impeccable craftsmanship and uncanny manipulation of choreography and music. In celebration of her 60th anniversary, Twyla Tharp Dance landed at City Center in a double fisted bill: Diabelli (1998) and Slacktide (2025).

Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations composed in the early 19th century was played live by the excellent Vladimir Rumyantsev and is considered one of the  “greatest of all piano works.” A lover of musical structures, Tharp plays inside and outside the score tickling social dances out of bouncy musical passages and traditional steps  framed by a casual allure. Musical themes sparkle allowing contemporary moves to happily snap at classical technique so that pointed toes flip into flexed feet, and bodies collapse on the floor only to ​levitate into an arabesque.

The score’s wit and intricacy speaks through the highly trained dancers who can seamlessly switch between slinky, sassy moves that melt into the knees then spin out of the head. Acrobatic lifts situate women on top of men’s shoulders only to fall forward and spin around into a piggyback ride. These playground pedestrian-style runs, skips, and hops undergird the nonstop action that folds ballet technique into ballroom couples.

Dressed in sleeveless jumpsuits stenciled with a tuxedo fronts by Geoffrey Bean, the uniformity ends there because the rest of the time, couples mix it up with jaunty sashays and eye-blurring quick footwork that criss-crosses in multiple directions. Running almost an hour long, like the score, Tharp’s Diabelli repeats phrases and textures. For those familiar with Tharp’s oeuvre, dance quotes from past creations visibly circle in and around. For the rest of the audience, the dancers’ nonchalant classical executions proved exciting.

Another creative heavyweight, Philip Glass, wrote the score Aguas da Amazonia for Tharp’s premiere Slacktide ​which was played live by the highly popular Third Coast Percussion. More subdued than some of Glass’s better known scores, including the mega hit In The Upper Room (choreographed by Tharp 40 years ago) the dancers clad in black shorts, pants and tops by Victoria Beck joined forces in the evening’s premier​e. 

Against a black scrim near the lip of the stage, ghostly images of dancers shift across the darkened space. Cooly moving laterally, the scrim rises and the dancers are silhouetted against a saffron colored backdrop designed by Justin Townsend. Couples swing their arms and prance in various motifs, criss crossing each other and engaging with contrapuntal musical figures.

Again, the choreography belies the difficulty level expected of the dancers. Duets unfurl into clumps of dancers congregating and splitting into call and response gestures  A solo for Reed Tankersley compresses Tharp’s whiplash style centering ballet over shifting centers and multiple focal points. 

By the evening’s end, the audience was satiated by Tharp’s nonstop creative output.

​EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Celia Ipiotis