The Joffrey Ballet premiered her Deuce Coupe (set to music by the Beach Boys), As Time Goes By and Sue’s Leg. Twyla Tharp and many of her dancers were now invited to collaborate and perform with major ballet companies. 1976: Push Comes to Shove performed by Mikhail Baryshnikov and members of American Ballet Theatre, was the first work Tharp choreographed for Baryshnikov, with whom she went on to have a successful artistic partnership. Her group was invited to participate in major dance festivals where works like The Bix Pieces and Eight Jelly Rolls grabbed audiences with their physical daring and deep roots in the history of jazz. This became apparent to critics and audiences alike with her 1971 piece, The Fugue. Always, the choreography was dynamic, unpredictable and underpinned by an unusually thorough musical intelligence. She worked less often with contemporary avant-garde music than with classical music, pop songs, a clicking metronome, or silence. While modern dance had historically aspired to high seriousness and spirituality, Tharp’s work was humorous and edgy. Twyla Tharp’s work fused classical discipline and rigor with avant-garde iconoclasm, combining ballet technique with natural movements like running, walking and skipping. ![]() In the cultural ferment of New York in the 1960s, most young artists felt challenged to test the boundaries of their media. ![]() The following year, she created Sue’s Leg, one of the influential works she choreographed to classic jazz recordings, in this case by Fats Waller. 1974: Dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp in New York. This company, originally composed of five women (two men were added in 1969), worked ceaselessly for five years, performing wherever they could, earning little or no money for their work. Shortly after graduation in 1963, she joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, but within two years, she left to start her own group, Twyla Tharp Dance. She completed her art history degree, but she had already resolved to make a career in dance. In New York, she was able to study at the American Ballet Theatre school, and with most of the great masters of modern dance: Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Erick Hawkins. At Barnard, Tharp studied art history, but found her passion in the dance classes she took off campus. Twyla Tharp left home for the first time to go to Pomona College, but after three semesters, she transferred to Barnard College in New York City. In 1988, her company merged with American Ballet Theatre, which has held world premiers of sixteen of Tharp’s award-winning works. From 1971-1988, Twyla Tharp Dance toured extensively around the world, performing original works of dances, ballets, and theater. Their work often utilizes classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. 1968: Twyla Tharp, two years after she founded her innovative dance company, Twyla Tharp Dance. Her mother was determined that she become accomplished in as many fields as possible and also had her take baton lessons, drum lessons, violin and viola lessons, classes in painting, shorthand, French and German. ![]() ![]() Twyla began dance classes at age four, and soon was studying every kind of dance available: ballet, tap, jazz, modern. Twyla’s mother was a piano teacher who began to give Twyla piano lessons when she was only two. The Tharp family owned and operated a drive-in movie theater in Rialto, California, and Twyla attended school in nearby San Bernardino. Twyla Tharp was born in Portland, Indiana, but moved with her parents to Southern California when she was still a child.
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