Twyla's Sexy New Twirls

By Martha Duffy

As the curtain rises, the star is standing at the barre, one foot waggling over the horizontal. The problem, she announces, is how men and women might dance together since the twist tore them forever out of each other's arms. "The twist," she observes, "was an unforgiving movement" in which the body got stuck, first on one side, then on the other. A hilarious demonstration proves the point.

Twyla Tharp is back in more ways than one. Having stopped dancing at 45, she is performing again at 50. Having lost her company in the toils of the recession, she has organized a new pickup group, with some of the sleek dancers on loan from other troupes. And Tharp is also talking. Not quite an unprecedented situation for this iconoclastic choreographer, but an unusual one. In Men's Piece, the highlight among four premieres, she tells what is on her mind about men and women and the dance they must do through life together, illustrated by duets with Kevin O'Day. As the ballet progresses and athletic feats multiply, the narrator finds herself gasping, but her lung power never fails her.

A couple of the duets are silly fun: the postwaltz era of male dominance in dance ("Besides the obvious indignity of him dictating the moves, how the hell were you supposed to know what he would do next?") and a number with the wonderfully wry O'Day in crude drag, set to Tammy Wynette's country-song-of- the-month, Stand By Your Man.

The work ends on a more serious note with an idea that seems close to Tharp. The last duet, she announces, is based on the principle of isometrics, "two equal forces from opposite directions . . . that combats earthquakes and other slippage." In the end she concludes, "If you're speaking of love, you really must include the element of uncertainty -- and perhaps it's best approached as the art of constant maintenance." That is sobering counsel for would-be participants in the sexual game, but it applies to choreographers as well. Tharp's current troupe is mostly new to her work, and it is heartening to see them toss off her older pieces like Ocean's Motion and Deuce Coupe with a brio that often does not survive more routine revival efforts.

More and more, however, Tharp is attracted to classical pointe work. Three of her dancers, Robert LaFosse, Stacy Caddell and Allison Brown, are from New York City Ballet. On opening night they appeared in Octet, a stringent black- and-white ballet set to an Edgar Meyer score. That was followed by a larky grand pas classique performed by Isabelle Guerin and Patrick Dupond, both visitors from the Paris Opera Ballet. Tharp says, "When I was a kid, toe dancing and toe shoes had a meaning in our culture as a serious kind of art." Perhaps that is why she can't help kidding ballet conventions. In her pas de deux the couple occasionally run out of steam or have to consult each other before hurling themselves into yet more flashy fouettes.

After New York City, Tharp's troupe will tour in Japan. Then comes a movie musical with James Brooks (Terms of Endearment). What next for the choreographer and her flock? Well, in addition to constant maintenance, there is also that element of uncertainty. Tharp seems to thrive on it.