PARA PAR@ ` TEXT ` Tharp, Twyla1941╨dancer and choreographerBorn on July 1, 1941, in Portland, Indiana, Twyla Tharp grew up there and in Los Angeles. From an early age she studied music: piano at first, followed by violin, viola, and music theory and composition. She also studied various forms of dance, from tap to ballet, and while a student at Barnard College she studied at the American Ballet Theatre School. She also studied privately under Richard Thomas, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and others. In 1963, shortly before her graduation from Barnard, she joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company, where she soon established herself as a dancer of considerable talent and imagination. In 1965 she left the Taylor company to form her own troupe. Tharp╒s first publicly performed piece of choreography, Tank Dive, was presented in April 1965 at Hunter College in New York City. In performances later in the year she presented Stage Show, a piece for the Alaska pavilion at the New York World╒s Fair, Stride, Cede Blue Lake, and Unprocessed. Through subsequent works, including Re-Moves and Yancey Dance in 1966, Forevermore, Three Page Sonata for Four, and Generation in 1967, Excess, Idle, Surplus, followed by Disperse, After Suite, Group Activities, Medley, and Dancing in the Streets of Paris and London, Continued in Stockholm and Sometimes Madrid, in 1969, she built a small but devoted coterie of admirers with her offbeat, technically precise explorations of various kinds and combinations of movements. Her early works generally employed no costumes, sets, properties, or music, and were frequently designed for such spaces as basketball courts, gymnasiums, outdoor areas, or bare stages. With Eight Jelly Rolls, first shown at Oberlin College in January 1971 and brought to New York in September, and The Bix Pieces, performed in Paris in November 1971, Tharp adopted jazz music (that of Jelly Roll Morton and Bix Beiderbecke, respectively) and began creating fuller, more engaging works that appealed to larger audiences. Her choreography retained its technical brilliance, often overlaid with an air of nonchalance, while its touches of flippant humor became more marked. Deuce Coupe, to music of the Beach Boys, was created for the City Center Joffrey Ballet and premiered to a highly enthusiastic reception in Chicago in February 1973. As Time Goes By, also for the Joffrey, followed later in 1973; In the Beginning appeared in 1974; and in 1975 she showed Sue╒s Leg, a jazz ballet to Fats Waller╒s music, and Ocean╒s Motion, a dance piece to Chuck Berry╒s music. She was by that time established as one of the most innovative and nonetheless popular of modern choreographers at work anywhere in the world. Subsequent works included Give and Take, 1976, Push Comes to Shove for the American Ballet Theatre, 1976, Deuce Coupe II for the Joffrey, 1976, and Mud for her own company, 1977. She also was choreographer for the motion pictures Hair, 1979, Ragtime, 1981, Amadeus, 1984, and White Nights, 1985. In 1988 she disbanded her company and moved with some of her members to the American Ballet Theatre where she was an artistic associate until 1990. Among her other pieces are Baker╒s Dozen, 1979, When We Were Very Young, 1980, The Catherine Wheel, 1981, Nine Sinatra Songs, 1982, In the Upper Room, 1986, Brief Fling, 1990, and Demeter and Persephone, for the Martha Graham Dance Company, 1993. She received a Dance magazine award in 1981 and the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award in 1990. Tharp published an autobiography, Push Comes to Shove, in 1992. ╢styl ` b ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ - !I ┼ !I ▐ ╥ !I Φ 5¬ Θ !I ! !I * !I ¥ !I º !I τ !I φ !I ∩ !I ² !I !I !I 5 !I = !I B !I N !I X !I c !I e !I !I à !I Å !I Ö !I ƒ !I í !I Ñ !I º !I « !I ╝ !I ─ !I ╞ !I ╤ !I ╙ !I π !I σ !I δ !I ± !I H !I Ñ 5¬ ª !I ½ !I ╝ !I !I % !I Ä !I Ö !I 5 !I D !I t !I ä !I « !I ╖ !I π !I ± !I
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