Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer, choreographer, author, and book writer born on July 1, 1941, in Portland, Indiana, to William and Lecile Tharp. She was named for Twila Thornburg, the Pig Princess of the 89th Annual Muncie Fair. As a child, Tharp spent portions of each year on her Quaker grandparents' farm in Indiana. Her mother required her to take lessons in dance, multiple musical instruments, shorthand, German, and French. In 1950, the family relocated to Rialto, California, where her parents operated Tharp Motors and Tharp Autos and opened a drive-in theater at which Tharp worked. She attended Pacific High School in San Bernardino, studied at the Vera Lynn School of Dance, and trained in ballet with Beatrice Collenette. After beginning her college education at Pomona College, she transferred to Barnard College, where she earned a degree in art history in 1963. In New York City she studied with Richard Thomas, Martha Graham, and Merce Cunningham, and in 1963 joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

In 1965, Tharp choreographed her first dance, Tank Dive, and founded Twyla Tharp Dance. The company toured extensively worldwide from 1971 to 1988, performing original works. Her choreography draws on classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music. In 1973 she created Deuce Coupe, set to the music of The Beach Boys, for the Joffrey Ballet; the work is recognized as the first crossover ballet, blending ballet and modern dance. She followed it with Push Comes to Shove in 1976, featuring Mikhail Baryshnikov, now regarded as the foremost example of the crossover ballet form. In 1988, Twyla Tharp Dance merged with American Ballet Theatre, after which ABT premiered 16 of her works and by 2010 held 20 of them in its repertory. Tharp regrouped the company in 1991 and has since created work for Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, and Martha Graham Dance Company, among others. She also created the dance roadshow Cutting Up with Baryshnikov in 1992, which toured 28 cities over two months.

In 1995, Tharp held global auditions to assemble the troupe behind the three-year touring project Tharp!, for which she set more than six new works, including Heroes with music by Philip Glass, Diabelli to music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Roy's Joys set to the music of Roy Eldridge, and Sweet Fields, drawn from 19th-century Shaker hymns. In 1998, her piece Yamayá, incorporating sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club, premiered at Memorial Auditorium at Stanford University. Tharp! concluded at the end of 1998; several of its members went on to prominent positions, including principals at the Royal Ballet and the Metropolitan Opera, and the project launched the career of choreographer Jessica Lang, who made her professional debut with the troupe after being recruited from the Juilliard School. In 2000, Tharp reconstituted Twyla Tharp Dance with entirely new dancers, developing material that would become the Broadway musical Movin' Out. In 2012, she created the full-length ballet The Princess and the Goblin, based on George MacDonald's story of the same name, co-commissioned by Atlanta Ballet and Royal Winnipeg Ballet; it was her first ballet to include children. Tharp also served as the first Artist in Residency at Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, where she created and premiered Waiting at the Station, with music by Allen Toussaint and sets and costumes by Santo Loquasto.

Tharp's Broadway career spans from 1980 to 1984 as a performer, and her work as a choreographer and book writer has continued well beyond that period. Her first Broadway appearance came in 1980 with Twyla Tharp Dance performing When We Were Very Young, followed in 1981 by The Catherine Wheel, a collaboration with David Byrne at the Winter Garden Theatre that was later broadcast on PBS with its soundtrack released on LP. She also appeared in Fly Away Home on Broadway. In 1985, her staging of Singin' in the Rain played at the Gershwin Theatre for 367 performances. Tharp premiered Movin' Out, set to the music and lyrics of Billy Joel, in Chicago in 2001; the show opened on Broadway in 2002, ran for 1,331 performances, received 10 Tony nominations, and earned Tharp the Tony Award for Best Choreography in 2003, as well as a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography that same year. A national tour of Movin' Out launched in January 2004. In 2005, Tharp opened The Times They Are a-Changin', set to the music of Bob Dylan, at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego; the production set records for highest-grossing show and highest ticket sales as of its closing in March 2006 and was the first show to receive a second extension before its first preview. Its subsequent New York run comprised 35 previews and 28 performances. In 2009, Tharp mounted Come Fly with Me, built around the songs of Frank Sinatra, at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, where it became the best-selling four-week run as of its closing date. Retitled Come Fly Away, the show opened on Broadway in 2010 at the Marquis Theatre for 26 previews and 188 performances, earning Tharp a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography in 2010. The production was subsequently retooled as Sinatra: Dance with Me at The Wynn Las Vegas in 2011, and a national tour launched in Atlanta in August 2011.

Tharp collaborated with film director Miloš Forman on Hair (1978), Ragtime (1980), and Amadeus (1983), with Taylor Hackford on White Nights (1985), and with James Brooks on I'll Do Anything (1994). Her television work includes choreographing Sue's Leg for the inaugural episode of the PBS series Dance in America in 1976, co-producing and directing Making Television Dance (1977), which won the Chicago International Film Festival Award, directing The Catherine Wheel for BBC Television in 1983, and co-directing the television special Baryshnikov by Tharp in 1984.

As an author, Tharp has written four books: the autobiography Push Comes to Shove (1992, Bantam Books); The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (2003, Simon & Schuster), translated into Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Thai, and Japanese; The Collaborative Habit (2009, Simon & Schuster), translated into Thai, Chinese, and Korean; and Keep It Moving (2019). On May 24, 2018, Harvard University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Arts degree.