Twyla Tharp Dance returns to The Joyce Theater after 12 years

Twyla Tharp Dance returns to The Joyce Theater after 12 yearsFor the first time in almost 12 years, Twyla Tharp Dance will perform at The Joyce Theater in New York City for two weeks this month. Twyla Tharp and Three Dances, a program conceived and directed by Twyla Tharp and featuring two classics and one NYC premiere, will be presented by The Joyce Theater Foundation on July 10-23 in its intimate Chelsea home.

 

Part of the Pathways to Dance Upstate/Downstate initiative, Twyla Tharp and Three Dances will feature a company of longtime Tharp dancers along with new members. John Selya, Matthew Dibble, Daniel Baker, Ramona Kelley, Amy Ruggiero, Eva Trapp, Nicholas Coppula, Kaitlyn Gilliland and Reed Tankersley make up the company.

 

Twyla Tharp Dance returns to The Joyce Theater after 12 yearsOn the program are two Tharp classics, Brahms Paganini and Country Dances, and a new work, Beethoven Opus 130, which recently had its world premiere at Saratoga Performing Arts Center on June 30.

 

Upon announcing this engagement in April, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater Linda Shelton said, “I am thrilled that The Joyce’s relationship with Twyla Tharp Dance will continue this July when the company returns to perform a program featuring two of the early and midcareer works from Tharp’s repertoire and a new work that I expect to be equally impressive.”

 

Country Dances, Tharp’s 1976 work, opens the program. Set to music from America’s heartland, the piece features four dancers who do-si-do through square dance adaptations. The NYC premiere of Tharp’s dramatic new work, Beethoven Opus 130, featuring longtime Tharp dancer Matthew Dibble with the company, set to Beethoven’s famous Opus of the same title, follows.

 

Closing the program is 1980’s tour de force Brahms Paganini, a work for six set to Books I & II of Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Opus 36 by Johannes Brahms. This dance showcases the virtuosity of Tharp’s dancers, featuring a male soloist who dances all of Book I and a quartet and female soloist who display a high level of technical precision and stamina in the movement of Book II.

 

Twyla Tharp directing in the theaterHaving just celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, Twyla Tharp Dance is as strong as ever. It’s founder and choreographer continues to create new works, set previous works and is in the process of writing her fourth book. Tharp graduated from Barnard College in 1963 and since then has choreographed more than 160 works: 129 dances, 12 television specials, six Hollywood movies, four full-length ballets, four Broadway shows and two figure skating routines. She has received one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, 19 honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize, and a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor. Her many grants include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

 

Tickets for the upcoming Joyce performances can be purchased at www.Joyce.org or by calling 212- 242-0800.

 

Photo (top): Twyla Tharp leaping in the 1980s. Photo by Bill King. Photo (left): Tharp in 1992. Photo by Greg Gorman. Photo (right): Tharp in the theater. Photo by Gene Feldman.