Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharp
Twyla Tharpis an American dancer, choreographer, and author who lives and works in New York City. In 1966, she formed her own company Twyla Tharp Dance. Her work often utilizes classical music, jazz, and contemporary pop music...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDancer
Date of Birth1 July 1941
CityPortland, IN
CountryUnited States of America
learned novels tolstoy
I've read probably 25 or 30 books by Balzac, all of Tolstoy - the novels and letters - and all of Dickens. I learned my craft from these guys.
bar features films four grew learned meant saw silent snack stories theater time watching
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
dancing laws learned learning matter people seriously theater
When I started thinking seriously about learning the rules of narrative, I thought, 'You've learned the rules of dancing from the ballet; what's the matter with learning the laws of theater from the people who know how to do it?'
order next ive-learned
I have to feel that each thing I've learned I can push to another point next time. I'm not very good with repetition. I would rather not work than feel that repetition is the order of the day.
giving-up lesson-learned different
Ultimately there is no such thing as failure. There are lessons learned in different ways.
side
When I was a kid, the avant-garde to me was boring because it was just the flip side of being really successful.
deformed element harder hours nobody popular portrait quill spent time worked
Nobody worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose. That's the missing element in the popular portrait of Mozart.
alone basically obviously solitary survive surviving work
'The Creative Habit' is basically about how you work alone, how you survive as a solitary artist. 'The Collaborative Habit' is obviously about surviving with other people.
best ditch
My father always said, 'I don't care if you're a ditch digger, as long as you're the best ditch digger in the world.'
represents
My dancers expect me to deliver because my choreography represents their livelihood.
age
This is the strange thing: Dancers don't age.
brush generate ideas pencil
You can only generate ideas when you put pencil to paper, brush to canvas... when you actually do something physical.
morning people
People often say to me, 'I don't know anything about dance.' I say, 'Stop. You got up this morning, and you're walking. You are an expert.'
ballet came classes dancers great maybe study took
At the ballet classes I took when I first came to New York, I would see great dancers like Cynthia Gregory and Lupe Serrano. I would look at them and study what they could do, and what I couldn't do. And then I'd think maybe they should try what I could do.