Archive for twyla tharp
April 29, 2008 at 12:26 am · Filed under dance, tour, ALEX, miami city ballet, twyla tharp
Hello all! Sorry I haven’t posted for so long, but I’ve been so busy the past few months, and now I finally have a bit of time to sit down and write. The past few months have been a whirlwind!
Our last program of this season consisted of Square Dance, Sonatine, Tarantella and of course, our world premiere choreographed by Twyla Tharp, costumes by Issac Mizrahi and with new music by Elvis Costello - “Nightspot”. The piece featured a live band on stage with the dancers as well as a full orchestra in the pit.
(Photo courtesy of Joe Gato)
Working with Twyla Tharp was really quite something. At first when we started choreographing, we didn’t have the score from Elvis Costello yet, so she worked with the dancers and believe it or not, we did a lot of our choreography to the Gypsy King’s “Bamboleo!” It wasn’t until later in the year when she came back the 2nd time that she brought a tentative score with her and then we started setting the piece to Costello’s music. It was a bit difficult to imagine what the music was like because the score was put into a program, and a synthesized version was produced (which is what we heard and danced to until the week of the performance).
After our run of program 4, we continued on to wrap up our season with a few shows in Long Island, NY and Princeton NJ. The tour was wonderful, and the audience was very appreciative and responsive. We performed Raymonda Variations, Sonatine, Tarantella and In the Upper Room. I thought I was going to drop dead when I saw the performance casting go up as I was casted to dance Tarantella and then right into Upper Room!
(Tarantella, photo courtesy of Zou Yang)
(Jeanette Delgado and I, photo courtesy of Zou Yang).
We just arrived back in Miami today and we have a few days off before we start some early rehearsals for next season. The dancers are all excited to start working on “Our Show,” which is a show made, produced, and put on by the dancers. It gives us a chance to experiment with choreography (and choreographers) and to also perform different styles of dance if we wish to.
That’s all for now, however I do have last thing to add in - Miami City Ballet will be attending City Center for a week of performances at the end of January 2009!
Recent Posts by alex wong
October 23, 2007 at 12:55 pm · Filed under dance, rehearsal, studio, 890 broadway, twyla tharp, photography, american ballet theatre, MATTHEW, philip glass
The past two seasons, ABT has showcased Twyla Tharp’s aerobic Philip Glass masterpiece, “In The Upper Room.” It’s the type of piece that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat and literally has them erupting into applause the moment the nearly forty minute ballet ends. While “Upper Room” won’t be seen this season, a different type of Twyla will be on display with in her 1979 creation “Baker’s Dozen.”
This ballet is in a simpler style than “Upper Room,” and contains quirky movement full of humor that finds the dancers doing handstands, slides and much more. From what I viewed through the lens the other day, it looks like it’s going to be a crowd pleasing ballet that everyone will enjoy. Be sure to check it out!
(Luciana Paris and Luis Ribagorda.)
(Nicola Curry and Grey Davis in a rather unconventional pose for a ballet.)
(Marian Butler and Roman Zhurbin.)
(Roman and Arron Scott do a little vogueing.)
(Tobin Eason, Yuriko Kajiya, Stella Abrera and Patrick Ogle doe some flying.)
(Bend and snap.)
(Look at that formation, they’re practically synchronized swimmers.)
(Jessica Saund plays Esmerelda to Roman.)
(More formations.)
(Roman and Isaac find something to rest on at the end of a long day of rehearsals.)
Recent Posts by matthew
September 18, 2007 at 3:26 am · Filed under dance, travel, rehearsal, studio, friends, miami, wingers, miami city ballet, twyla tharp, life, JUSTIN, rubies
So I just returned from a fun 5-day visit to Miami. I went to visit a bunch of very close friends of mine, who are now prominent members of the Miami City Ballet.
My first order of business upon my arrival was to really take in South Beach (where most of the dancers down there reside). At first it gave off a feeling of surrealism. It was as if I had walked into a postcard setting. Or as if the city of Miami Beach is simply one great big extensive resort in paradise. There are miles and miles of beaches engulfing South Beach, and the weather is in a constant tropical state. I’m not sure how I would feel about living in such a peculiar corner of the country, but visiting it was, beyond a doubt, an experience of its own.
Visiting my friends gave me a prime opportunity to get to see what Miami City Ballet is all about. Like with any ballet company, it has its pluses and minuses. However, overall I found that I really took a liking to the company. It seems like a great company to work for. There are roughly 50 dancers, and they appear to have created a sort of family-based feeling to the work environment. The company is saturated with talented dancers from all walks of life. Everything from Cuban virtuosos, to Chinese technicians, to talented alums of the School of American Ballet.
I also loved their repertoire, and remain to be particularly jealous of the Twyla Tharp ballets that they get to dance (In the Upper Room, 9 Sinatra Songs, + more). Sometimes I find that, after a while, Tharp choreography can begin to mesh and look very similar. But it’s the type of movement that I could watch all day. Its like candy to me. Or ice cream. In ballet slippers.
One thing I couldn’t help but noticing was the average height of the Miami dancers. Their tallest dancer can’t be more then 5’11”, thus making me feel like some sort of colossal freak. I constantly caught myself crouching over when I talked to the other dancers, out of self-consciousness regarding my height and size 
.
So I definitely had a great time on my 5-day stint. I will absolutely be back to visit again very soon.
South Beach! A few of my close friends being sandwiched between two Winger correspondents
One of MCB’s beautiful practice studios. The company is in the middle of rehearsing “In The Upper Room” here
Me with a big group of the MCB dancers
Fellow Winger correspondant Alex Wong, doing the ‘rubies tilt’ with MCB dancer Daniel Baker
Recent Posts by justin
May 14, 2007 at 2:56 pm · Filed under video, TONY, sarah lawrence college, Sarah Richison, twyla tharp, project, new york dance
| 
| Posted by Tony Schultz
This past Sunday the Sarah Lawrence dance department participated in College Showcase: Works by Tharp, at the Joyce. The project brought together dancers from five New York colleges to perform works by Twyla Tharp. The picture above was taken during the Sarah Lawrence tech rehearsal using a slow exposure to capture the movement.
Barnard College, Eight Jelly Rolls (Jelly Roll Morton)
Hunter College, Country Dances - Excerpt (Traditional American)
The Julliard School, Deuce Coupe - Excerpt (The Beach Boys)
Marymount Manhattan College, The Fugue
Sarah Lawrence College, The Fugue (lecture demonstration)
This was a fun project to be a part of. Read the New York Times review here. Sarah Richison and I presented a video from a computational project we had been working on. I describe this project in a previous post. The video was shown in the lobby as the audience entered. It looked good on their fancy HD screen and I was happy that Sarah and I had re-shot all the footage to make everything look as crisp and clean as possible. Unfortunately I didn’t post about my showing beforehand since it was unclear, up until the last minute, whether we would be able to show the work. Intellectual property issues clouded things and the work had to be renamed Dancing Markov Networks. I didn’t mind the change however since it gave a more scientific description of what the project actually was.
Earlier in the week Sarah and I had the pleasure of presenting our project at the Joyce Soho during the last part of a Dance Talks presentation by noted dance historian and critic Marcia Siegal. Talking with Marcia Siegal was an honor and a pleasure. She is an incredibly accomplish writer, academic and thinker in the field of dance and dance studies. We were a bit star struck. Sarah even brought one of her books for Marcia to sign. It was great to talk about our work with such an engaged audience. I definitely hope to keep in touch with Marcia Siegel in the future. She had a great enthusiasm for exploring ideas about dance through computational methods. It always feels good when people take genuine interest in your work.
Recent Posts by tony schultz
March 8, 2007 at 12:59 am · Filed under dance event, TONY, dance graph, dance technology, sarah lawrence college, Sarah Richison, twyla tharp
| | Posted by Tony Schultz
Last month the students of the Sarah Lawrence College dance department performed Twyla Tharp’s The Fugue as the culmination of last semester’s performance project. This was done under the direction of Jennifer Way and Tom Rawe who both danced with Twyla Tharp Dance form the mid seventies to 1988. From time to time they had assistance from Sara Rudner, director of the Sarah Lawrence College dance and former Tharp dancer, and Rose Marie Wright, another former Tharp dancer and original performer of The Fugue.
The dance, originally choreographed in 1970, consists of several 20 count phrases which are recombined in spatial, temporal and logistic variation. In the spirit of The Fugue, Sarah Richison (one of our graduate students) and I created a piece of software called the Fugue Writer that generates new variations from the so-called “generic fugue material”. This choreographic interface allows the user to write their own fugue. The software enforces the restriction that only spatially continuous dances can be generated. This project was basically an interactive version of Dance Graph built around Tharp’s dance, with the added possibility of retrograde (time-reversed) movement.
Above is a picture of the interface. At the top, the lexicon of possible phrases are played. The center pull-down menu allows the user to choose possible phrases, in forward or retrograde. As new phrases are added the pull-down menu is repopulated with movement that is allowed to follow, to enforce continuity. Once the dance is written it can be played in the viewing window. During playback the current phrase is shown in the lower left of viewing window. This program is fun to play with. It definitely give me more ideas for other, more sophisticated, dance machines.
At the showing of The Fugue last month, Ginger Montel, the Associate Director of Twyla Tharp Productions, asked Sarah Richison and I to submit documentation of the Fugue Writer to the Twyla Tharp archives. Over the past month Sarah and I have been cleaning up the interface and rerecording the underlying fugue material. It has been great working on this project though both Sarah and I are glad it is over. Next week is spring break so we are ready to relax. We plan to display this work at The Joyce in May. I will keep everyone posted.
Since I do not own the intellectual property rights for The Fugue I cannot show any samples. You will just have to come see it for yourself in May. You will also be able to see the live performance. The Sarah Lawrence College dancers in this project are Hadar Ahuvia, Vivi Amranand, Laurie Benoit, Ashley Byler, Mary Chris DeBelina, Sarah Gottlieb, Alexa Hazelton, Belinda He, Moriah Mason, Jeremy Pheiffer, Ariel Pierce, Annie Rudnik, Jules Skloot and Jake Szczypek.
See you in May at The Joyce!
Recent Posts by tony schultz
February 19, 2007 at 1:05 pm · Filed under ballet, dance, friends, london, american ballet theater, KATE, kids, scotland, contemporary, cities, city, twylatharp, twyla tharp, abt, choreographer
| 
| Posted by Kate Bordwell
Where HAVE I been?
Well, last night I was at Sadler’s Wells in London watching ABT perform Symphonie Concertante, Spectre de la Rose, Swan Lake Act II Pas de Deux, and In the Upper Room. Unfortunately the Winger’s own David H. was having a well-earned night off, so I didn’t get a chance to see him dance and offer you all a fresh critique of his technique! I’ve not seen ABT perform before and I felt this programme was interesting because it consisted of a range of pieces that showed what the various members of the company did well. The only thing that was new to me, was In the Upper Room, and it was this that I had chosen the programme for. I am a huge Twyla Tharp fan - I think the style is so natural, so energetic, so fun, so athletic - and having read David’s posts about this piece I vowed I would take the first opprtunity I had to see it performed. I didn’t realise I would have a chance so soon! I thought it was truly wonderful, the best thing in the night, one of the best things I have seen. The costumes and the smoke were very effective but it was the dancing I loved. I have no idea where those dancers get their stamina from. It was a marathon, but we wanted more when it ended.
Previously to this, where have I been? Being between houses for the last three or four months has rendered me slightly incommunicado - no wireless broadband to fuel my fire. As it is I am posting this from the train to Glasgow, which has been my home for the past four weeks. The joy of a first class ticket: broadband and free tea.
So far, in Glasgow I have:
- Taught European History (the very precise 1500-2000 variety) to first-year university tutorial groups
- Been to a nightclub on a boat on the Clyde that played swing dance and rock n’roll music and let me in for a discounted price because I was “fabulous enough”
- Had debates in old man’s pubs about postmodernism
- Eaten Tunnocks Snowballs
- Revelled in travelling on the mini subway trains
And a whole bunch of other things which I promise to post about soon. I have not yet taken a dance class, but I will check out the classes at the Scottish Ballet, as I have heard they are good, and I am not entirely enamoured with going to the smelly university gym all the time.
So this weekend I was only in London for a few days. I took the opportunity to say good bye to my friends, and to various other things. My husband is still living in London because we haven’t managed to sell our house yet (grr to the lawyers) so we went on one of our inflamously long walks around London yesterday.
On Saturday we met friends at the Museum of Childhood - they brought a child. Their child, Saskia was two and a half and had been taken to her first Nutcracker at Christmas. She and I danced in the car park.
Then in the evening we met many of our friends in The Duke of Cambridge to say goodbye. This is an organic pub quite close to Sadler’s Wells, in Islington. The food is great. We had great fun but were very sad to be leaving everyone behind. Here’s me with two lovely friends, looking slightly worse for wear…
I will miss my friends, the shops, dance classes at The Place and the Royal Ballet most. Most of the stuff I see at Sadler’s Wells comes to Edinburgh or Glasgow so I won’t miss too much in the way of touring companies. But for the glitz and glamour and excitement of Big Ballet I will have to go to the Royal Opera House, which will just so happen to involve staying with friends, perhaps hitting the shops and taking a class or two, so I am not complaining. My new life in Scotland just means I get to do everything I do, nation-wide.
Recent Posts by kate bordwell
·
Next entries »
