Tharp is one of the most recognized names in the dance world, familiar to Broadway audiences and filmgoers alike. She has been a significant and insistent choreographic force since the 1960s. Choreographing for ballet companies, film, Broadway, as well as her own modern dance company, Tharp and her works are known for known for their musicality, their formalism, their wit, and above all, the demands of simultaneous technical precision and wild abandon on the dancers. Tharp has been instrumental in modern dance’s affection for combining different kinds of movement. Born in 1941, as a child she studied a range of techniques – ballet, tap, jazz, flamenco. Tharp started her career as a dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, making her first professional appearance with them at the Pillow in 1964. Aside from her own company, her works have been performed at the Pillow by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and she revived a community-based work, The One Hundreds, here in 2001. Modeled on Bach’s “Musical Offering,” The Fugue consists of a twenty-count theme which is developed into twenty variations.
EXPLORE MAURA KEEFE’S MULTIMEDIA ESSAY ON TWYLA THARP
Read More
