Twyla Tharp Dance 60th Anniversary

Ticket buyers are invited to attend Program Notes, a free pre-performance Q&A in the theater at 6:30 pm with Twyla Tharp Dance Company Manager and former dancer Alexander Brady and Lensic Executive Director Joel Aalberts. 

Twyla Tharp celebrates her 60th anniversary with a coast-to-coast tour featuring her Olivier-nominated “Diabelli,” set to Beethoven’s masterpiece of the same name, and a new dance to a reimagining of Philip Glass’s iconic “Aguas da Amazonia.”

Showcasing Tharp’s uncanny and witty use of music to create work of startling originality and beauty, the two dances once again ensure Tharp’s place as one of the great artists of our time. Don’t miss this groundbreaking evening of stellar dancing and phenomenal musicianship.

The first and only choreographer to take on the intensely demanding and demonically complex “Diabelli,” Tharp makes visible the elegant humor and depth of the composer’s layered genius. With each section of the Beethoven piece, unique in mood and texture, Tharp’s response—tender, teasing, transcendent, cheeky—commands all of its performers’ technical prowess—and energy—as they change effortlessly from ballet to jazz, to modern, with unexpected bits of social and street dance for good measure.

Almost two centuries later in years and spirit is Philip Glass’s “Aguas da Amazonia,” arranged and recorded by members of Third Coast Percussion in close collaboration with Tharp and performed on a unique collection of custom-designed percussion instruments.

This groundbreaking evening is not one to be missed and is sure to dazzle audiences with its stellar dancing and phenomenal musicianship.

Event Sponsor: Catherine Oppenheimer