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When all seats are sold, we will offer a limited number of tickets to a special 3 pm Salon on May 14th at Booker T. Washington High School.
Members $25. Non-Members $30.
Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp was born in Portland, Indiana in 1941, and moved with her parents to Southern California when she was eight years old. Her mother was a piano teacher who began introducing Twyla to the arts before she was two years old. Ballet, tap, jazz, and modern dance classes filled her childhood days, along with lessons in painting, piano, baton, drums, violin, viola, French, and German.
After high school, Twyla attended Pomona College for three semesters before transferring to Barnard College in New York City. There, she studied art history, but found her passion in off-campus dance classes at the American Ballet Theatre. She studied under Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Erick Hawkins. In 1963, shortly after graduating from college, she joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, but within two years, she left to start her own group, Twyla Tharp Dance. Originally composed of five women, her troupe performed wherever they could, earning little or no money, for five years.
The artistic work of Ms. Tharp fused classical discipline with avant-garde iconoclasm, combining ballet technique with natural movements like running, walking, and skipping. She worked with classical music, pop songs, a clicking metronome, or silence. Always dynamic, her work was unpredictable, intelligent, humorous, edgy, and mesmerizing. After her premiere of The Fugue in 1971, in which she combined physical daring with a deeply-rooted jazz influence, her star began to rise. She and her dancers were now invited to collaborate and perform with major ballet companies.
The Joffrey Ballet premiered her Deuce Coupe, set to music by the Beach Boys. At American Ballet Theater, Ms. Tharp premiered Push Comes to Shove, juxtaposing variations by Mozart with ragtime tunes by Scott Joplin. Mikhail Baryshnikov danced the lead, beginning a powerful collaborative relationship between dancer and choreographer that would endure for years.
In the 1980s, Ms. Tharp's work was the staple of ballet companies around the world. In 1991, she reunited her company, Twyla Tharp Dance, and Baryshnikov joined the group in a program called Cutting Up. The work enjoyed one of the most successful tours in the history of contemporary dance.
For her 1984 television production, Baryshnikov by Tharp, she won three Emmy Awards, as well as the Director's Guild of America Award. The following year, she directed and choreographed a stage production of the classic Singin' in the Rain, which enjoyed a solid run on Broadway and a highly successful national tour.
In 1992, her autobiography, Push Comes to Shove, was published, and she received a MacArthur Fellowship.
After touring the world to critical and popular acclaim for a decade, she returned to Broadway in 2002 with the original dance musical Movin' Out, built around the songs of Billy Joel. The show produced a host of honors including the Tony Award for Ms. Tharp. It ran for more than three years on Broadway.
In 2003, Ms. Tharp published her second book, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, in which she shared life lessons from her own career and of artists throughout the ages.
In 2004, for her lifetime contribution to her country's culture, she received the National Medal of Arts presented to her by President George W. Bush in a ceremony at the White House.
In 2006, Ms. Tharp brought a second "jukebox musical" to Broadway, The Times They are a Changin' based on the songs of Bob Dylan.
To date, Twyla Tharp has choreographed more than 135 dances, five Hollywood movies, and three Broadway shows. She has received nineteen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, the Jerome Robbins Prize, The Kennedy Center Honors, and many grants including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Today, Ms. Tharp continues to create and lecture internationally.
