Howling Near Heaven: Twyla Tharp and the Reinvention of Modern Dance

by Marcia B. Siegel

For more than four decades, Twyla Tharp has been a phenomenon in American dance, a choreographer who not only broke the rules but refused to repeat her own successes. At the conclusion of Howling Near Heaven , Marcia Siegel writes about the thrill of watching Tharp choreograph in 1991: "Tharp's movement can be planned or spontaneous, personal, funny, hard as hell, precise enough to look thrown away. She doesn't so much invent or create it, she prepares for it. Crusty, driven, demanding, and admiring, she hurls challenges at the dancers. Brave, virtuosic, and cheerful, they volley back what she gives them and more. She watches them. They watch her. It's the most subtle form of competition and cooperation, a process so intuitive, so intimate, that no one can say whose dance it is in the end, and none of the parties to that dance can be removed without endangering its identity. The same is true for all theatrical dance making, all over the world, only most of it isn't so inspired or obsessed."
Starting in the rebellious 1960s, Tharp tried her creative wings on minimalism, pedestrianism, and Dada, then abandoned both the avant-garde and the established modern dance. She thrilled a new audience with her witty version of jazz in Eight Jelly Rolls, then merged her dancers with the Joffrey Ballet for the sensational Deuce Coupe, to the music of the Beach Boys. She explored the classical world in Push Comes to Shove, for the American Ballet Theater and the celebrated Russian virtuoso Mikhail Baryshnikov. For her touring company in the 1970s and 1980s, an unprecedented fusion of modern dancers and ballet dancers, she created a superb repertory that included the theatrical full-length work The Catherine Wheel , the ballroom duets Nine Sinatra Songs , and the company showcase Baker's Dozen .

Tharp has made movies, television specials, and nearly one hundred riveting dance works. Movin' Out , the dance show that reflected on the Vietnam era using the music of Billy Joel, ran on Broadway for three years and won Tharp a Tony award for Best Choreography.

Howling Near Heaven is the first in-depth study of Twyla Tharp's unique, restless creativity, the story of a choreographer who refused to be pigeonholed and the dancers who accompanied her as she sped across the frontiers of dance.

Genres: Biography

336 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2006

About the author

The author is a resident of New York, where she is a dance critic for for New York Magazine and the Hudson Review. She also teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. She received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship to work on her book, The Shapes of Change.

Reviews

[Sarahanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very comprehensive overview of Twyla Tharp's work, "Howling Near Heaven" includes extensive interviews with her dancers and collaborators. As a dancer I understand better why her work was (and still is) groundbreaking. She makes no excuses for herself and expects nothing but the best from her dancers.

"Howling" traces Tharp's career from her days at Barnard up to "Movin' Out" (mercifully leaving out her Bob Dylan jukebox-musical "The Times They Are A-Changin'") and while the perfectionist in her never backs down, her objectives evolve as she moves further in her career. "Howling" follows how her personal life affected her work, from pregnancy to a stint living in the country.

Most impressively, author Marcia B. Siegal allows Tharp's work to speak for itself. Siegal concisely describes several of Tharp's dances matter-of-factly, allowing the reader to really see the dances for what they were. Short digging up a video of the dance from Tharp's extensive homemade archives, it's the next best thing.

[Glenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Dance Festival honored Twyla this year with a reprisal of Spring Fields. I was mesmerized by the performance. So inspired, I decided to read more about her. Not only a icon in the dance world, she is brilliant and brings this insight into her choreography. I am simultaneously reading her own book The Creative Habit. It is a really cool way to learn about this powerful woman.