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In the middle of Beethoven\u2019s \u201cDiabelli Variations,\u201d from 1823, the pianist\u2019s left hand starts rocking up and down the keyboard in a pattern that sounds uncannily like boogie-woogie from the 1930s and \u201940s. For a choreographer courageous enough to tackle that score, this is low-hanging fruit. It\u2019s easy to be witty by having the dancers jitterbug, with women tossed over the shoulders of their partners and hung upside down.<\/p>\n
Twyla Tharp does this in her \u201cDiabelli\u201d (1998), but the difference between Tharp and other choreographers is that by this point in her dance, the over-the-shoulder lift has already been introduced (and earned a laugh). Theme and variations is an ideal form for her brilliant mind, and her \u201cDiabelli\u201d is a masterwork.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, with Tharp the jitterbug moves aren\u2019t just an allusion to a seemingly incongruous historical rhyme; they\u2019re an allusion to herself and her signature way of mixing American social dances into her American classicism.<\/p>\n
At New York City Center on Wednesday, Tharp\u2019s \u201cDiabelli\u201d had its New York debut as part of a tour celebrating her 60th year as a choreographer. That\u2019s a lot of past to draw upon. The little-seen \u201cDiabelli\u201d is a treasure from the vault, but its new companion piece, \u201cSlacktide,\u201d is full of fruitful recycling and repurposing, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The challenge of the Beethoven score (excellently played at City Center by Vladimir Rumyantsev) is its one-thing-after-another quality, an hour of music divided by 33. There has to be enough repetition and backward references to hold the dance together but also enough transformation to keep it surprising and moving forward. Like a form-producing machine on overdrive \u2014 symmetry and asymmetry, duets doubled and tripled, five-part canons! \u2014 Tharp maximizes both.<\/p>\n
Beethoven took a mediocre theme by Anton Diabelli as material with which to demonstrate his own unparalleled virtuosity. Tharp takes Beethoven\u2019s virtuosity as a partner for hers, and that of her 10 terrific dancers. As she introduces her movement motifs and shows how they change in different choreographic and musical contexts, she continually marks details in the score. But unlike choreographers who follow the map of the music, Tharp creates her own. She might repeat a section exactly, or with a twist, but not because Beethoven does.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Because she is Tharp, the grand design incorporates vaudeville gags. Dancers bump into each other, face-off, mock fight. One section for two men plays with the old \u201cI\u2019m in front \u2014 no I\u2019m<\/em> in front\u201d bit, which Tharp mines for its classic humor and revives with clever variation. But even these comedy bits are ultimately just movement material. When Tharp brings them back, they might be tender or pure form.<\/p>\n Throughout, Tharp distributes little suggestions of interpersonal relationships and dramatic situations. (She can do that, too.) A few duets go further, expanding into resonant scenes. In one, a woman is searching for something or someone but it\u2019s not the man with her; he rolls on the floor, and she steps over him unaware.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For Tharp aficionados, the tuxedo fronts on Geoffrey Beene\u2019s sleeveless costumes for \u201cDiabelli\u201d recall Kermit Love\u2019s sleeveless, backless tuxedos for Tharp\u2019s \u201cEight Jelly Rolls\u201d (1971). In \u201cSlacktide,\u201d Tharp\u2019s self-allusion is even more specific: It\u2019s the first move, isolated in light: a raised fist pulled down, which is also the final gesture from \u201cIn the Upper Room\u201d (1986).<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Upper Room\u201d had a score by Philip Glass, and so does \u201cSlacktide\u201d: his \u201c\u00c1guas da Amaz\u00f4nia,\u201d in a new arrangement played live by Third Coast Percussion. Where in \u201cUpper Room\u201d the fist is yanked down, here it is lowered slowly. The dancers move in slow-motion, as if underwater.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As if out of the murk, another current surfaces: a loose, limb flinging, heavily torqued wildness. Alongside this movement contrast, Tharp incorporates fragments of story. At one point, the dancers look like tourists; at another, like the guys and girls groupings in \u201cGrease.\u201d It all merges into a flow that threatens to stall but doesn\u2019t. Kind of like Tharp\u2019s creativity.<\/p>\n Programmed after \u201cDiabelli,\u201d the much shorter \u201cSlacktide\u201d might have looked like an afterthought. Many of Tharp\u2019s recyclings in recent pieces have seemed like worn-out chewing gum (a Tharp simile) or lazy shorthand, but this new work \u2014 set to Glass, the arch-self-plagiarizer, who took a bow on Wednesday \u2014 is fresh enough to hold its own. As the Glass score is obviously a Glass piece, \u201cSlacktide\u201d is obviously a Tharp, and a good one.<\/p>\n The measure of quality isn\u2019t whether Tharp is repeating herself but how. And it\u2019s important she doesn\u2019t allude only to herself. \u201cDiabelli\u201d is chock-full of nods to predecessors. I spotted some Agnes de Mille, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor and, of course, George Balanchine.<\/p>\n One of central motifs of \u201cDiabelli\u201d and its final move \u2014 a fall that ends with the dancer stretched out along the floor \u2014 comes from Balanchine\u2019s 1934 \u201cSerenade.\u201d It\u2019s just a fall that Tharp uses like any other bit of movement material. But she knows what it means. It\u2019s a nod to the past that connects her to a pantheon. A bold move, but not an unjustified one.<\/p>\n Twyla Tharp Dance<\/strong><\/p>\n Through Sunday at New York City Center; nycitycenter.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n