Features > Impressions The Dance Enthusiast's Brand of Review/Thoughts on What We See

IMPRESSIONS: Twyla Tharp Dance's Diamond Jubilee at New York City Center

By Henning Rübsam
View Profile | More From This Author

Published on March 24, 2025
Twyla Tharp Dance in "DIABELLI." Photo: Christopher Duggan

Choreographer: Twyla Tharp

Dancers: Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Marzia Memoli, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley

Pianist: Vladimir Rumyantsev

Third Coast Percussion members: David Skidmore, Sean Connors Robert Dillon, Peter Martin

Flutist: Constance Volk

Dates: March 12 - 16, 2025

The cover of the program booklet reads TWYLA, and shows twelve dancers in heterosexual pairings. Twyla Tharp celebrates her Diamond Jubilee, 60 years of dancemaking, at New York City Center and presents two New York premieres. The interesting caveat about these NY premieres happens to be that one of the works is actually from 1998, while the other came out this year. 

Diabelli, the older work, a piece to Ludwig van Beethoven's “Veränderungen…” (which is closer in meaning to transformations than to variations) on a waltz by Austrian composer and publisher Anton Diabelli, opens the program. Many consider Beethoven’s treatment of the simplistic original waltz to be one of the masterworks of music history. Beethoven himself was a revered artist when Diabelli sent his ditty to composers of the time with the request to come up with a variation. Eventually Diabelli published two volumes: one with Beethoven’s 33, and another with everyone else’s efforts.   

Marzia Memoli, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens, Renan Cerdeiro and Nicole Morris in DIABELLI. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Tackling a Beethoven masterwork not only defies choreographer George Balanchine, who famously said, “The art of dance would be better off not venturing into Beethoven's world, because it is impossible to choreograph his music,” but also means biting off more than most can chew. 

Tharp knows how to develop and manipulate a theme masterfully, however, and her ten dancers move with ease meeting all challenges joyfully. Her Diabelli offers a choreographic lesson that incorporates Tharp’s brand of showmanship and a kind of gentle humor that she must have imported from her early days with choreographer Paul Taylor. Pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev brings out the lightness in many a section, and one can even hear a bit of jazzy parodic vamping, a quality which Tharp picks up on and uses to develop some of her variations. 

Kyle Halford, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Renan Cerdeiro, Alexander Peters and Reed Tankersley of Twyla Tharp Dance in DIABELLI. Photo: Christopher Duggan

Geoffrey Beene’s black, sleeveless tuxedo uniforms — complete with bow tie on the white triangle that suggests a shirt — look like a tame, yet equally tacky Chippendales’ uniform. 

They are definitely a throwback to the Tharpian Americana of yesteryear. Just when Tharp’s allusions to Vaudeville get tiresome, she pulls out of her hat a couple of pas de deux that take me on an emotional journey. That all partnering concentrates on heterosexual pairings — except the ones with a humorous intention — contributes further to the work looking older than its premiere date.

Twyla Tharp Dance in DIABELLI. Photo: Christopher Duggan

This year’s SLACKTIDE puts all twelve dancers in the spotlight to Philip Glass's composition "Águas da Amazônia," originally composed for Brazil’s Grupo Corpo and choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras, who premiered the work in 1994. Accompanied live by Third Coast Percussion, who came up with a new arrangement of the score featuring flutist Constance Volk, the dance plays on a rich layering of sounds. A whirlwind of virtuosity emerges from the depths of a slow, swimming motif.

Twla Tharp Dance in SLACKTIDE. Photo: Christopher Duggan
 

I am dancing in my seat (and later on in the streets), as one dancer accelerates a human carousel by giving a colleague a push. Does Tharp make a conscious reference to choreographer Agnes De Mille (the original choreographer of the Broadway musical Carousel) or is she just being Tharp, a choreographer informed by the history of American dance? The dynamic range in SLACKTIDE fills me with awe and wonderment. Individual recklessness electrifies but never endangers the group, because the patterns are meticulously planned. My kinetic light is turned on, and the dancer in me wants to join the fantastic movers on stage. I forget to take notes, but vicariously embark on a physical flight of fancy. The delightful suspensions that Zachary Gonder relishes in his rotations with widespread wings excite me as much as Marzia Memoli’s attack and release. I have to force myself to look at the whole picture, rather than be swept away by Kyle Halford’s gorgeous fluidity, but thankfully all the dancers offer special qualities that I rejoice in. Tharp makes Reed Tankersley her Neptune, the god of the sea, who stirs up the slack water and brings it to a boil. 

Twyla Tharp Dance in SLACKTIDE. Photo: Christopher Duggan
 

In addition to the artists mentioned, all of the dancers deserve applause: Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Daisy Jacobson, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, and Molly Rumble. Costumes in twelve inventive variations on black by Victoria Bek help Tharp’s SLACKTIDE look contemporary, but I have the feeling that this particular Tharp masterwork will remain timeless. 

Twyla Tharp Dance in SLACKTIDE. Photo: Christopher Duggan

The Dance Enthusiast Shares IMPRESSIONS/our brand of review, and creates conversation.
For more IMPRESSIONS, click here.
Share your #AudienceReview of performances. Write one today!

The Dance Enthusiast - News, Reviews, Interviews and an Open Invitation for YOU to join the Dance Conversation.