In this dazzling celebration of her company’s 60th Anniversary, Twyla Tharp presents a Diamond Jubilee of two career-spanning New York premieres that offer audiences a breathtaking vista of her range as an icon in American dance.
The first and only choreographer to take on Beethoven’s intensely demanding and demonically complex Diabelli Variations, Tharp makes visible the elegant humor and depth of the composer’s layered genius in her piece Diabelli, presented in the US for the first time during this tour. With each section of the Beethoven, unique in mood and texture, Tharp’s response—tender, teasing, transcendent, cheeky—commands all of the performers’ technical prowess and energy. The dancers change effortlessly from ballet to jazz to modern, with unexpected bits of social dance.
Almost two centuries later in years and spirit is the choreographer’s setting of Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia. Glass’s iconic music comes alive in Tharp’s new work, SLACKTIDE, featuring a bold new arrangement created and performed live by members of the Grammy-winning Third Coast Percussion. Tharp’s dancers capture all the rhythmic, propulsive energy of this Glass suite, invigorated by a collection of custom-designed instruments.
