Review: Twyla Tharp Dance


Twyla Tharp
(©Robert Whitman)

 

Dance lovers attending Twyla Tharp Dance will get a wonderful surprise when they show up at the Joyce Theater, and sorry, it’s about to be spoiled here. The program includes an update announcing an addition to the evening’s line-up, “Entr’Acte,” to be danced by the company to the music of, among others, Blind Willie Johnson, Roy Eldridge, John Laurie and Franz Schubert. It isn’t until the piece begins about midway through the evening that audiences discover just what a treat they’re in for.

Tharp herself comes onstage, instantly garnering a standing ovation. She proceeds to introduce the piece by informing us that it will reveal how she and the company “spend our days.” What ensues depicts a rehearsal, with the legendary choreographer herself taking part, at first simply issuing instructions but eventually joining in the dance. At age 76, Tharp’s lithe physicality and no-nonsense presence remain undiminished, and while the piece itself is little more than a novelty, it was so delightful to see her dance again that it instantly became the evening’s highlight. Especially when she jokingly remarks, “The language of dance has always eluded me.”

With her appearance, Tharp essentially upstaged herself, or at least “Dylan Love Songs,” her long-awaited new piece receiving its world premiere. Tharp’s second effort using the singer/songwriter’s music after her ill-fated 2006 Broadway musical The Times They Are-a-Changin’, the work is performed by five dancers with the addition of John Selya (a Tony nominee for Tharp’s Movin’ Out) who, clad in a black coat and hat, seems to be representing Dylan. It presents a series of duets and solos danced to seven Dylan classics including “Shelter from the Storm” and “Things Have Changed.” While not particularly distinguished choreographically, the superb dancing and iconic music nonetheless pack an emotional punch.

The two rarely seen vintage works on the program proved more satisfying.  1972 “The Raggedy Dances,” performed to ragtime-style piano music composed by Scott Joplin, Charles Luckeyth Roberts, William Bolcom and Mozart’s variations on the melody that inspired “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, it’s a charmingly exuberant showcase for five loose-limbed dancers including Kara Chan, whose diminutive stature and style recalls a young Tharp. An even earlier piece, 1970’s “The Fugue,” features Chan, Reed Tankersley and Kellie Drobnick performing rigorously executed rhythmic variations unaccompanied not by music but rather the sound of their stomping feet on the amplified stage.

Although Tharp has no permanent ensemble of her own, you wouldn’t know it from the cohesion and discipline exhibited in this superb evening that has become the dance hit of the fall season. And the opportunity to see the award-winning choreographer in the flesh is not one to be missed.

 

Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., New York City. Through Oct. 8. 212-242-0800. www.Joyce.org.