Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp ( born July 1, 1941 in Portland, Indiana / USA ) is a choreographer and ballet mistress.

Life

Twyla Tharp grew up in California. Her mother, a piano teacher wanted her daughter to acquire the broadest possible range of skills. This began with piano lessons at the age of two years, ballet lessons at the age of four, and learning several other instruments, painting, and French. Your college education began Twyla Tharp at Pomona College, but after a year at the Banard College in New York, where she studied art history. At the same time she studied outside of the college at the School of American Ballet Theatre dance with Martha Graham and Erick Hawkins.

After two years with Paul Taylor in 1965 she founded her own ballet company. 1988 merged their company with the American Ballet Theatre, for which she created more than a dozen pieces. As a result, she also choreographed pieces for other famous ballet companies such as the Royal Ballet and the New York City Ballet.

1979 Twyla Tharp worked for the film Hair for the first time with director Miloš Forman together. Later they repeated their cooperation in the films Ragtime (1980) and Amadeus (1984). Other film projects were White Nights (1985) and I'll Do Anything (1994).

Since 1980, Tharp also worked on Broadway, among other things, When We Were Very Young, Singing in the Rain and moving out. David Byrne composed in 1981 on behalf of the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation all the songs to the Broadway production of The Catherine Wheel. 1986 Philip Glass composed the music for the 45 minutes long dance piece In the Upper Room ', also known as Dancer 's Notebook, # 1-9 known.

Her own company in 1991 was revived. Your program Cutting up, which was created in collaboration with Mikhail Baryshnikov, was one of the most successful productions of contemporary dance.

Prices

Works

• Push Comes to Shove - autobiography; Bantam Dell Pub Group 1992; ISBN 978-0-553-07306-5
• The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life; Simon & Schuster 2008; ISBN 978-0-7432-3527-3

CD

• Philip Glass: In the Upper Room - Dancer 's Notebook # 1-9, Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation, Inc., conductor; Michael Riesman, 2009 Orange Mountain Music

Record

• Songs from the Broadway Production of " The Catherine Wheel ", composer and singer David Byrne, 1982, Hamburg: WEA Music