Vivid
Still Dancing
By Abby Watson
In the ever fluctuating world of dance there are always up-and-comers — new faces eager to stake their claim and make an impact on the scene. From Des Moines and Boise, from Kiev and Dakar, they make their way to this Mecca of their art form. Dance has historically been a calling for the young, or at least favors them; a dancer’s prime years come fast and pass quickly. A lucky few manage to stretch their careers beyond their mid-30s, but this is rare. Yet for all the importance and premium placed on youth, those who continue to make the biggest impact and to shape the future of dance are artists and choreographers in their third decade of professional work. They have established brilliant companies that do groundbreaking work and have changed the face of dance, both classical and modern.
One of the foremost choreographers of the 20th century, Twyla Tharp, was born in Portland, Indiana in 1941 and named after Twila Thornburg, the Pig Princess of the 89th Annual Muncie, Indiana, Fair.
Her childhood was packed with German classes and piano lessons, shorthand drilling and dance training, all fueled by a forward-thinking and ambitious mother. While Twyla Tharp openly admits the emotional and social sacrifices she made along the way, she credits her mother with giving her a strong foundation. “I’m sure that children who are fortunate enough to have parents who introduce them at a very young age to a calling that becomes their profession and chosen passion have an advantage over all others,” that daughter says.
Upon graduating from Barnard with a degree in art history in 1963 following a transfer from Pomona College, California, she studied under Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham and joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Two years later she formed Twyla Tharp Dance, and her career as a choreographer officially began. Since then she has choreographed pieces for the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Ballet, the New York City Ballet, the Boston Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, the Martha Graham Dance Company, and many another organization. Twyla Tharp Dance merged in 1988 with American Ballet Theatre, where she has by now choreographed more than a dozen works. Ms. Tharp has to date choreographed 135 pieces, five Hollywood movies (including Hair, Ragtime, Amadeus, and White Nights), directed and choreographed three Broadway shows — one of them her Tony-winning Movin’ Out — and piled up 17 honorary doctorates.
She refuses to pigeonhole her work and refers to improvisation, the main source of her inspiration, as “futzing around.” Refreshingly candid and eloquent in interviews, she manifests a timeless soul and an appreciation for the fun that is inherent in dancing, “I learned very early that an audience would relax and look at things differently if they felt they could laugh with you from time to time,” she says. “There’s an energy that comes through the release of tensions that is laughter.”
Another graceful and dynamic woman who has helped build American dance is Judith Jamison, born in Philadelphia in 1943. Her parents enrolled her in dance lessons in order to endow her exceptional height with grace. A protégé of famed ballet instructor Marion Cuyget, Ms. Jamison decided to go off into dance after three semesters of psychology coursework at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and completed her studies at the Philadelphia Dance Academy. Upon completion in 1964 she was discovered by Agnes De Mille and joined the American Ballet Theatre in The Four Marys. The following year she joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, and a brilliant partnership was formed – she the star, he the genius. The 5-foot-10 Ms. Jamison electrified audiences with her regal bearing and emotionally charged performances. She shot to international fame in Ailey’s 15 minute solo Cry, a three-part tour de force dedicated by the choreographer “to all black women everywhere -- especially our mothers.” This tall black woman has danced with the San Francisco Ballet, the Swedish Royal Ballet, the Cullberg Ballet, the Vienna State Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre, among others.
She left the Ailey company in 1980 in order to star in the Broadway musical Sophisticated Ladies and to found her own dance company, the Jamison Project. When Alvin Ailey fell ill she rejoined his American Dance Theater as artistic associate for the 1988-1989 season, and after Ailey’s death that year she was appointed artistic director of the company in compliance with his wishes. Under her direction the company has become one of the world’s forerunners of modern dance, artistically and monetarily rejuvenated. As a proponent of arts education, she is also the artistic director of the training school of the Ailey Company, and was the main instigator of the B.F.A. program jointly conducted by the Ailey School and Fordham University.
Ms. Jamison is the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor, a primetime Emmy Award, an American Choreography Award, and the National Medal of Arts. She broke ground as an African-American woman in the world of dance and has proved to be one of the world’s most acclaimed dancer-choreographers.
Bill T. Jones is a testament to the assertion that it is never too late. Born in 1952 to a family of migrant workers, he grew up traveling up and down the East Coast following the seasonal crops, and did not start dancing until he was an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Returning to SUNY after two years away in Holland’s Amsterdam, he met his future collaborator and companion Arnie Zane. They choreographed and performed nationally and internationally as a duet before forming the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982.
To date Jones has created more than 100 works for that company in addition to choreographing for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Axis Dance Company, Boston Ballet, Lyon Opera Ballet, Berlin Opera Ballet, New York City Opera, Houston Grande Opera, Munich Blennale, and Diversions Dance Company. His post-modern new-wave work often employs contemporary costumes, video installations, text readings, and body painting. Before Zane’s untimely death in 1988, their pieces focused on intensely personal, autobiographical material, and Jones continues that tradition. He is the recipient of a Macarthur “Genius” Award, a Creative Artists Public Service Award in Choreography, choreographic fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and numerous Bessie Awards. Bill T. Jones defies the conventional assumption that you stop dancing after a certain age.
Abby Watson, a dance and history major new to New York City, writes about the arts and the new city that she loves.
