“Quintessentially Tharpian” is what I would have titled the Twyla Tharp Dance program, presented February 9 - 11 in Berkeley by CAL Performances, as part of a nationwide tour celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of Tharp’s first dance company. With its musicality and vigor, Tharp’s choreography dazzles and delights. The venue is filled with aficionados and newcomers alike, come to bask in her genius and applaud the longevity of this American dancemaker.
Tharp is an American treasure. A tastemaker and essential contributor to the development of contemporary dance, the inventive and ever-popular Tharp, now in her eighties, continues to make new dances. In addition to her award-winning work in television, film, and on Broadway, since 1963, Tharp has choreographed 129 dances. From this Diamond Jubilee showcase, Tharp has chosen an epic mid-career work, Diabelli (1998), and the freshly minted SLACKTIDE (2025). This pair of West Coast premieres well-represent the unique amalgam of dance styles for which Tharp is known, while offering a insight into her evolving style. There is also an interesting conversation happening between the two dances, in which movement vocabulary recurs in the later piece but with revised intention and attitude.
Diabelli is inspired by, and performed to, “Thirty-three Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120,” Beethoven’s amazing achievement in the art of variation-writing. To this day, Tharp is the only choreographer to set a dance to the entirety of the piece. In its frequent pivots of mood, tempo, and texture, Tharp has found a willing canvas upon which to paint her own variations on the human experience.
Ten dancers embody the work. In duos and trios, and larger ensembles, their energy magnifies their numbers in our heads. Surprise and delight abound, as over the course of an hour, they morph dance genres effortlessly from ballet, to jazz, to modern, to a waltz. A grand jete may lead into a lingering earthbound lunge. A formally held fourth position en haut of the arms, will most surely yield to a whimsical pogo bounce which finds a woman’s grinning face popping up behind her male partner’s unsuspecting upright figure. With crooked elbows linked, a duo trades off a series of Broadway-cowboy inspired heel clicks to the side.
Tenderness and humor each have their moments. Tharp’s dancers are individuals, moving in relationship with each other. Their faces alive throughout as they communicate with each other and with the audience. The choreography is technically precise and fiendishly complicated but somehow the ensemble delivers it with an uncanny freshness and ease which invites us to lean back and enjoy.
Against a black-velvet curtain of infinite depth, the dancers’ bodies glow in the bright warmth of Justin Townsend’s clear lighting. They wear matching sleeveless black-and-white tuxedo jumpsuits, stylishly designed by 20th C American fashion designer Geoffrey Beene, known for his ability to marry luxury and comfort. Their sleeveless formal wear design speaks to working class waiters, valet parkers, orchestra members, and ushers, as well as to the hoi polloi. (Those with deep roots in Tharp’s dancemaking may also be reminded of the tuxedo halter costumes Kermit Love designed for Tharp’s first music-inspired dance Eight Jelly Rolls (1971), a slapstick sendup to music by Jelly Roll Morton.)
While the promise of dynamic dance drew us in the doors, it was the live music which lifted the experience beyond excellent to extraordinary. Pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev delivered Beethoven’s devilishly demanding “Diabelli Variations” zestfully. The energy virtuosic between the dancers on stage and pianist Rumyantsev in the pit is positively electric.
As a counterpoint to the black-and-white ethos of the first act, Tharp’s new SLACKTIDE transports us to otherworldly watering worlds, defined by Townend’s chromatically shifting cyclorama. The rising curtain reveals a mysterious mist-filled void, in which an arm extends skyward in a shaft of light, as a distant foghorn-like tone resonates. As the stage fills with light and life, we are again in the thrall of Tharp’s high-energy, genre-rich, and complex choreography. Here the linear construction of Diabelli's movements have softened. An insouciance brings curves to the fore, as a looser, more languid and pedestrian vibe reverberates. Working with an all-black pallet, costumer Victoria Bek has crafted streetwear in a variety of appealing profiles, each displaying plenty of rosy-light-glazed flesh. SLACKTIDE is set to Philip Glass’s “Aguas da Amazonia” in a new arrangement created and performed here by members of Third Coast Percussion, with featured flutist Constance Volk.
In the score, the patter of raindrops and the rushing waters of a river emerge. Syncopated rhythms send a soloist spinning across the stage edge, as others frolic in formation upstage, weaving a tapestry through space. Arms pump and bodies dash backwards, against the tide. With arms extended like pinwheels, the dancers twirl. Games of leap-frog, recalled from Diabelli but newly made with a serpentine twist, playout. The beat of Glass’s suite propels the dancers’ intricate footwork, but it is the surprisingly melodic sequences which drive them into ever deeper interpersonal relationships. Several striking male-female duets unfold. Characterized by controlled leg extensions, whimsical upside-down lifts, and heartful clinches, they reveal a tale of intimate familiarity.
While abstract and non-narrative, SLACKTIDE’s textures and atmospheric density offer many possibilities. A duet in full-silhouette, against a blindingly vivid chartreuse sky, offers a purity of form, as the couple tangos at the end of time. Later, Volk’s breathy tones playing atop an undercurrent of marimba melodies summons, for me, an undersea garden full of dancing sea horses.
Diamond Jubilee further solidifies Tharp’s popularity and reinforces her powerful influence over generations of dancers and viewers. Satiated and exhilarated, we spill out into the sunlit plaza at UC Berkeley. For another moment we are together, a community of arts lovers reveling in our fine decision to spend Superbowl Sunday with each other and Twyla Tharp Dance.
Review by Jen Norris, published February 10, 2025
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Production Credits
Friday and Saturday, February 7–8, 2025, 8pm Sunday, February 9, 2025, 3pm
Zellerbach Hall
Twyla Tharp Dance
Diamond Jubilee
Vladimir Rumyantsev, piano featuring Third Coast Percussion and Constance Volk, flute Choreographer Twyla Tharp
Ensemble Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens, Nicole Ashley Morris, Marzia Memoli, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley
Vladimir Rumyantsev, piano
Third Coast Percussion David Skidmore, Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and Constance Volk, flute
PROGRAM
Diabelli (1998, West Coast Premiere)
Choreography by Twyla Tharp Music: 33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 by Ludwig van Beethoven
Live musical performance by Vladimir Rumyantsev
Costume Design by Geoffrey Beene
Costume Coordinator: Victoria Bek
Lighting Design by Justin Townsend
Performed by Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Marzia Memoli, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, Reed Tankersley
Covers: Zachary Gonder, Molly Rumble
Diabelli was commissioned by the Cité de la Musique (Paris); the Barbican Center (London); and the University of Iowa, Hancher Auditorium (Iowa City).
SLACKTIDE (2025, West Coast Premiere)
Choreography by Twyla Tharp
Music: Aguas da Amazonia by Philip Glass
Live musical performance by Third Coast Percussion and Constance Volk, flute
Costume Design by Victoria Bek
Lighting Design by Justin Townsend
Performed by Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Miriam Gittens, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Marzia Memoli, Nicole Ashley Morris, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley