Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharpis an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966, she formed her own company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often utilizes classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDancer
Date of Birth1 July 1941
CityPortland, IN
CountryUnited States of America
artist best bits enter happen hope people pieces pull served
No artist is well served in thinking what will happen to their works. The best one can hope is that they'll enter the mainstream, and people will pull bits and pieces from them.
impulses logic needs people piece prompt unable
'Bum's Rush' is a piece about timing, and everything that's in the piece needs to be with the piece. If people are missing, or marking, or unable to use their voices, the impulses that prompt the action are lost, and its logic crumbles.
drives next open piece point success ultimate
The ultimate point of a piece for me is that it drives the next one. Does it open new doors? That's the success of a piece.
mother children pieces
With each piece I've completed I have worked to make it intact, and each of them has been an equal high. It's like children. A mother refuses to pick out one as a favorite, and I can't do any better with the dances.
dance stupid thinking
It is extremely arrogant and very foolish to think that you can ever outwit your audience.
dream upside-down turns
In dreams, anything can be anything, and everybody can do. We can fly, we can turn upside down, we can transform into anything.
side
When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.
deformed element harder hours nobody popular portrait quill spent time worked
Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
alone basically obviously solitary survive surviving work
'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.
best ditch
My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the best ditch digger in the world.'
represents
My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood.
age
This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age.
brush generate ideas pencil
You can only generate ideas when you put pencil to paper, brush to canvas... when you actually do something physical.