\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, is everybody\u2019s gum ready?\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a question most choreographers ask their dancers before a run-through of a work, but Twyla Tharp has always gone her own way. Her career \u2014 Tharp is on the cusp of her 60th year as a dance maker \u2014 has displayed breathtaking range, from experimental masterpieces (\u201cThe Fugue\u201d from 1970 exists in a class by itself) to Broadway hits. All of the work has this: exquisite technique matched with effortless ease.<\/p>\n
But back to the gum. It sets the tone for \u201cOcean\u2019s Motion,\u201d a 1975 melding of coolness and groove to Chuck Berry songs<\/a>, in which five dancers, with the air of bored teenagers, loop around one another with flirtatious spins and saunter across the stage in loping, bopping runs. What does the bubble gum they chomp during \u201cToo Pooped to Pop\u201d give them? Insouciance.<\/p>\n \u201cThe curtain goes up and it\u2019s like, You\u2019ve got to be kidding,\u201d Tharp, 82, said in an interview. \u201cIt\u2019s James Dean, it\u2019s, like, slunk down. It\u2019s cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOcean\u2019s Motion\u201d is the vintage opener of Tharp\u2019s latest program<\/a> at the Joyce Theater, which begins Tuesday and runs through Feb. 25. The program also includes two new works: \u201cBrel,\u201d a male solo of breadth and power set to music by Jacques Brel; and \u201cThe Ballet Master\u201d to music by Simeon ten Holt and Vivaldi, in which Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and Dulcinea make an appearance by way of the performers John Selya, Daniel Ulbricht and Cassandra Trenary.<\/p>\n In a way, the dances can be seen as portraits: \u201cOcean\u2019s Motion\u201d focuses on teenagers, spilling over with youthful daring. At the same time, they are a little contrived, a little self-conscious. \u201cThey\u2019ve examined, How many stitches are in this buttonhole?\u201d Tharp said. \u201cJust by accident, the collar is popped. It\u2019s that<\/em> kind of cool.\u201d<\/p>\n In \u201cBrel,\u201d performed alternately by Herman Cornejo and Ulbricht \u2014 veteran principals at American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet \u2014 Tharp explores the idea of a hero in the experienced body of a virtuosic dancer, no longer young yet armed with a different kind of vibrancy. As Tharp told Cornejo at a recent rehearsal: \u201cYou\u2019re not going to push through your body. If it\u2019s there, it\u2019s there. Let it grow through your body.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For a solo, it\u2019s long and brimming with big dancing \u2014 powerful, almost frenzied jumps that swing from one side of the stage to the other \u2014 as well as a poignant walking passage with steps knitted together so intricately it seems like the feet are gliding. Set to five of Brel\u2019s songs, including \u201cNe me quitte pas\u201d and \u201cMarieke,\u201d the solo has been gestating for years. Tharp began creating it for Cornejo before the pandemic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis ballet should have been premiered five years ago,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I\u2019m glad that it didn\u2019t because he\u2019s really grown into it.\u201d<\/p>\n And the choreography allows for starkly different interpretations: Ulbricht\u2019s precise, understated phrasing gives it a sparkling clarity, while Cornejo plays into its casual grandeur. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like I don\u2019t have anything to prove anymore,\u201d Cornejo said, \u201cso it\u2019s that kind of abandon and not going 100 percent like I used to. It goes with this character. It\u2019s very internal. Even though it\u2019s about Brel, I use my own life. And I go through things that I lived. And so my character is me.\u201d<\/p>\n Brel\u2019s persuasive, passionate voice, like Berry\u2019s in \u201cOcean\u2019s Motion,\u201d is more than a sound. It\u2019s what the dancing leans into and, in a sense, attempts to get inside. \u201cI\u2019ve always been very interested in covering singers who wear their heart on their sleeve,\u201d Tharp said, \u201cwho are shameless and who kick the harmony up an extra gear and who just are relentless for going at their audience, really, by the throat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tharp, who has made dances to Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys, and created a musical, \u201cMovin\u2019 Out,\u201d set to Billy Joel, also likes that Brel was Belgian of Flemish descent. She sees him as an outsider who contrasted a sense of distance with over-the-top emotionalism, a willingness,\u201d she said, \u201cto go for the inner curl of the gut.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This echoes Tharp\u2019s approach: Nonchalance mixed with vivid, visceral power. \u201cThe Ballet Master,\u201d her other premiere, centers on the choreographic process. The first part shows the struggle it entails, to vocal music by the minimalist Dutch composer ten Holt (\u201cBi-Ba-Bo\u201d<\/a>); the second, illustrates artistic breakthrough \u2014 beauty and harmony by way of Vivaldi (Concerto per la Solennit\u00e0 di San Lorenzo). When a rehearsal falls apart, the ballet master (Selya) \u2014 at first frustrated \u2014 has a vision and is transformed into Don Quixote.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to run up against walls, run up against frustrations,\u201d Tharp said. \u201cYou\u2019re tempted to quit, but you don\u2019t. You keep plowing through it. You need to have a fresh vision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n