Twyla Tharp the daring, original, stylish and high profile choreographer was born on 1st July, 1945 in Portland, Indiana. Her family moved to California when she was about eight years old. From a very young age she started learning piano, ballet, jazz, tap, violin, painting, shorthand etc. (Twyla Tharp Biography 2016). Her mother wanted her to be competent and expert in a number of fields. It was this strict and cumbersome schedule that she had to adhere to, which turned her into a workaholic and perfectionist. She invented the a technique called “Stuffing” in which various movements, including shrugged shoulders, little hops, cheeky curvy body movements were added. Tharp was known for this technique and breezy style of dance by the early 70s.She showed the world what was unique in her and defined her own path. She was the one to demand crossover dancer who can be comfortable with ballet and modern dance technique for the first time. She mixed everyday routine movements like running, skipping and walking with ballet and modern dance to create a new form of dance and created superb and innovative dance routines to music by great music directors like Jelly Roll Morton,Philp Glass to name a few. Tharp challenged the seriousness and spirituality associated with modern dance and made her routines edgy and humorous. She fused classical dance discipline with avant grade pushing the boundaries of what was accepted. She had many successful dance routines to her credit, namely, “When we were young” in 1980, “The Catherine” the following year, her television production “Baryshnikov by Tharp was a huge success and won three Emmy awards. The same time a lot changed in Jazz music in America; during 1970 African Americans gained popularity. New sounds were included to bring freshness to the jazz music; Jazz- Rock further changed the music’s delicate model in 1970s (Anderson 187). It was during this period that jazz was termed as “America’s Classical Music”. This can be related to the changes that Tharp incorporated in dance through her innovations challenging the set rules of a particular dance. Her performances like “ The Big Pieces” and “Eight Jelly Rolls” gripped audience with moves which were physically daring and rooted deep in the history of Jazz.
In the year 2002 Tharp returned to Broadway and with her original dance musical called “Moving Out” set to the music created by Billy Joel became the most popular creations of her till date. The show ran for three years continuously on Broadway. The show was premiered on 24th October, 2002 at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York. The plot of the story deals with the lives of five friends, Brenda, Eddie, James, Judy and Tony. It is a tale of time, which starts from 1960s, witness Vietnam War and moves forward to 1980s depicting the lives of five friends, going through various emotions of love, loss and forgiveness. Tharp’s unique style was the main attraction, dance routines with a fusion of ballet, jazz and other social dance forms was used to the expressive music set by Billy Joel 9 Choreographing the next step forward 2016). It is noticeable that throughout the long process of designing dance routines for the “Moving Out” Tharp continuously restructured the show adding new details to enhance the presentation and character details.
Tharp opened “Twyla Tharp Dance” company after leaving Paul Taylor Dance Company. Tharp always felt that dance as art should be restricted to the concert stage, dance deserved to be popular and not commercialized. Tharp had only one dream, a dream every true artist sees, to combine the best of whatever talent is present, to unite all the forms and skills to create a narrative piece which can be presented for one full evening. It is the only time that can tell whether she will be able to fulfill this dream or not.
Works Cited
Anderson, Iain."This is Our Music: Free Jazz, the Sixties, and American Culture." University of Pennsylvania Press 1.1 (2007): 1-254. Print
"Choreographing the next step forward." achievement.org. 2016. Web. 25 April. 2016.
"Twyla Tharp Biography." notablebiographies. 2016. Web. 25 April. 2016.
