Category: dance

TWYLA TIME

Twyla Tharp is tired of the itinerant artist life. So she’s bought into Brooklyn with a new company of her own. “Having achieved counterpoint she can respect, and whatever other skills and insights her various projects engendered, she’s ready to commit herself to building a troupe again. Work for hire inevitably involves compromises, and compromising is not how she wants to spend the rest of her life—although some adjustments she’s more than willing to make.” Village Voice

NEW MUSIC TO MATCH NEW DANCE

“Ballet has long had the power, and money, to commission new music, but poverty-stricken modern dance is in a different position. The lack of tie-ups between modern choreographers and composers is due partly to a lack of confidence, but more likely to sheer logistics. CDs of electronic music make few musical demands and are easily carried in a pocket. Now an ambitious new dance-and-music work takes British modern dance grandly in a significant new direction. An orchestra, a composer and a choreographer have united forces.” The Telegraph (London)

A CHOREOGRAPHER GROWS IN BROOKLYN

“Harvey Lichtenstein, chairman of the Brooklyn Academy’s Local Development Corporation, is overseeing a 10-year, $560 million plan to create a cultural district in Brooklyn near the academy, and Twyla Tharp is the first major artist to move into the community. One recent evening Mr. Lichtenstein, who was the head of BAM for 32 years, and Ms. Tharp, one of the most talked about choreographers working today, met at her Upper West Side apartment to discuss her coming season at the Joyce Theater in Manhattan and her hopes for the new space in Brooklyn.” The New York Times (one-time registration required for access)

REMEMBERING THE CHOREOGRAPHERS

“As our culture tumbles into the 21st century, concert dance is succumbing to the big business model: grow bigger or perish. But what happens to talented dance makers whose chamber-scale work will never fill the stages or auditoriums of City Center, the Brooklyn Academy of Music or even the Joyce Theater?” The New York Times (one-time registration required for access)

TWYLA THARP ON BEETHOVEN

If you think an orchestra is kept busy with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, you should see what a ballet troupe has to go through. Particularly when the choreographer is Twyla Tharp. “[J]ust as Beethoven’s symphony is inexhaustibly energetic, so is the ballet. Neither Beethoven nor Ms. Tharp runs out of steam.” The New York Times 02/07/01 (one-time registration required for access)

DEFINING THE DANCER

The fallout continues from the white-hot dispute between the San Francisco Ballet School and the mother of an 8-year-old applicant who was rejected on sight last year. The school has stood its ground, insisting that many body types are simply unfit for the ballet, but other prominent dance instructors around the country are disgusted with San Francisco’s perceived arrogance. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)

FEAR OF THE DANCE

“The idea of uncontrolled, wild dancing as something dangerous stays with us: the club must be licensed for entertainment; the rave strictly policed. The idea of people enjoying themselves, whirling like banshees out of control is deeply unsettling to authority. Uncontrolled passion must be restrained. Yet in the not-so-distant past, hundreds of thousands of people took part in frenzied outdoor orgies and wild displays of dancing that lasted for weeks. From as early as the eighth century and as late as the 17th, these dance manias spread across Europe.” The Guardian (London)