Tharp Genius on View at Harris

As Twyla Tharp’s ensemble returned to Chicago for a weekend run at the Harris Theater as part of her Jubilee tour celebrating 60 years as a choreographer, it was a who’s who of Chicago dance history in the audience, and well it should be: Tharp has a long history with the Windy City as the first choreographer in residence at Hubbard Street, and as a choreographer for Joffrey Ballet.  Indeed,her piece Deuce Coupe, created for Joffrey in 1973, was her first  “crossover ballet “ and began her lifelong work with ballet companies. Her dances are so well suited for ballet dancers that her company once merged with American Ballet Theatre.

It was fitting to have Tharp’s movement back on the Harris Stage where so many dancers have performed her works.  Her new company assembled for this tour is young and lithe and predominately US born and trained. Her dances are wickedly difficult, athletic and fast, with directional changes and backwards running and complex geometries, needing dancers who are hyper quick and exquisitely trained. 

The program only featured two works: the first piece was Diabelli to Beethoven’s score and dates from 1998. It is an ensemble work filled with delightful surprises including a lift that leaves the women curled about the shoulders of the men, footwork speed that requires the weight to be lifted up out of the legs almost the way Irish dancing is, and moments of social commentary and attitude. There are flashes of social dance and everyday life gestures, but mostly there is all out exuberant dancing, loads and loads of it, layering variations upon variations before it ends so suddenly. This work harkens from a particularly productive and busy season of Tharp’s career and was a co commission from a group of international spaces, and is a capstone of that part of her creative output. It serves as a summation of sorts of that style of her work

The second piece,the brand new Slacktide, is something of a retrospective: the torso was loose again, the lines of the body turned in and out and tilted with lightning speed, the weight of the body was played with, caught in, then resisting or even playing with gravity: Tharp Genius on View at Harris

there is a walk on the heels, a reveling in the motion of the foot, or the hip.  Lighting, here by Justin Townsend, becomes a set design, a partner in the picture.  The dancers were in black pieces by Victoria Bek that looked like New York streetwear from the 20th century. It was as if the ghosts of Jennifer Way and Christine Uchida (long ago and distinctive Tharp dancers) were haunting this piece. There is a certain delicious chaos to signature Tharp works and this piece was a distillation of that: the dances always have a certain satisfying resolution where a pattern emerges. Tharp never repeats herself, she raises the bar, and that bar is already high.  Set to Aguas da Amazonia played by Third Coast Percussion live in the pit with flautist Constance Volk soloing, this work sets a vibration that made the audience leap to its feet at the end. 

Tharp’s jubilee celebration was in Chicago all too briefly towards the end of a 16 city tour.  The octogenarian, according to her bio, continues to create. Those of us who love dance will continue to watch her oeuvre whenever we can see it.  Dance is made of humans, all too frail and ephemeral and it was a rare thing to see the dance community all gathered together to celebrate one of the centuries great talents. 

Twyla Tharp Dance featuring Third Coast Percussion in Diamond Jubilee was a special presentation at the Harris Theater, April 10 to 12,2025.

For more information on other Harris Theater performances (its a haven for dance companies and home to some of Chicago’s best) go to https://www.harristheaterchicago.org

For more information on Twyla Tharp go to https://www.twylatharp.org/

For more reviews go to https://www.theatreinchicago.com