In the middle of Beethoven's “Diabelle Variations” from 1823, the pianist's left hand begins to rock the keyboard up and down in a pattern that sounds astounding as a boogie wool from the 1930s and 40s. For a choreographer brave enough to tackle that score, this is a low fruit. It's easy to get the dancer to be a jitter bug and get resourceful with the woman being thrown over her partner's shoulder and hanging upside down.
Twyla Tharp does this in her “Diabelli Variations” (1998), but the difference between Tharp and the other choreographers is that at this point in her dance, over-shoulder lifts have already been introduced (and won laughs). The themes and variations are ideal for her wonderful mind, and her “Diabelle” is a masterpiece.
Moreover, the jitterbug movement in the tarp does not only hint at seemingly incongruous historical rhymes. They hint at themselves and are her signature way of mixing American social dance with her American classicism.
At the New York City Center on Wednesday, Tharp's “Diabelli Variations” made his New York debut as part of a tour celebrating his 60th year as a choreographer. That's a lot of past. The small-looking Diabelli is a treasure from the safe, but its new companion, Slacktide, is full of fruitful recycling and reuse.
The Beethoven score challenge (Vladimir Lumyantev's excellent performance in the city centre) is an hour-long quality, divided by 33 hours of music. It requires sufficient repetition and backward reference to hold the dance together. Like the foam production machine on overdrive, symmetry and asymmetry, duet doubled and tripled the five-part canon! – THARP maximizes both.
Beethoven took the mundane theme by Anton Diabelle as a source to show his own unparalleled virtuosity. Tharp films Beethoven's virtuosity as her partner and as her 10 amazing dancers partner. She continually marks the details of the score as she presents the motifs of movement and shows how they change in different choreography and musical contexts. However, unlike the choreographer who traces music maps, Tharp creates herself. She may repeat the section with exact or twists, but not because Beethoven is.
She's a tarp, so the grand design incorporates vaudeville gags. The dancers bump into each other, confront each other, and mock fights. One section for two men plays with the old “I'm in front – I'm in front” bit. But even these comedy bits are ultimately just material for movement. Once Tharp gets them back, they could be in soft shape or pure form.
Throughout, THAP distributes little interpersonal and dramatic situational proposals. (She can do that too.) Some duets go further and expand into the resonant scene. One is that a woman is looking for something or someone, but it is not a man with her. He rolls the floor and she walks over him unaware.
For Tharp Aficionados, the tuxedo front in a sleeveless outfit for Geoffrey Beene's “Diabelli” reminds me of Kermit Love's sleeveless backless tuxedo for Tarp's “Eight Jelly Rolls” (1971). In “Slacktide,” Tharp's self-error is even more specific. It is the first movement, the light is isolated.
“In the Upper Room” has a Philip Glass score, and “Slacktide”: his “Aguas da Amazônia” also performed live by the third Coast percussion. In the “top room”, the fist is pulled, where it slowly drops here. The dancers move slowly, as if they were underwater.
Another current surface, like a moving house: loose, limbs flying around, wild, very torquey. In addition to this contrast in movement, Tharp incorporates fragments of the story. At some point, the dancers look like tourists. Like a grouping of guys and girls in “grease”, with another person. It is all merged into flows that threaten stall but not. It's like Tharp's creativity.
The much shorter “Slacktide” programmed after “Diabelli” might have looked like an afterthought. Much of the recent tarp recycling looked like worn chewing gum (direct mile of tarp) or lazy shorthand, but the new piece is set on the large horny plasticiser that stole the bow on Wednesday. The glass score is clearly a piece of glass, so “Slacktide” is clearly a tarp and good.
The measure of quality is not how Tharp repeats himself, and not how it works. And it's important that she doesn't just imply herself. “Diabelli” nods to his predecessor. I found Agnes de Mille, Alvin Eilee, Paul Taylor and of course George Balanchine.
One of the central motifs of “Diabelle” and the final movement – ending in autumn when the dancers stretch along the floor – comes from Balanchine's 1934 “Serenade.” It's just autumn that Tharp uses just like other few bits of motion material. But she knows what it means. It's a nod to the past that connects her to the Pantheon. It's a bold move, but not an unfair move.
Twyla Tharp Dance
At the New York City Center until Sunday. nycitycenter.org
