To celebrate her 50th anniversary as a choreographer, Twyla Tharp is actually giving us a gift. She's going back out on a national tour debuting a program of new works, and Dallas is getting the biggest gift all--we get to host the opening night of the tour. On Sept. 18, with a second night on Sept. 19, Tharp's tour will open TITAS' 2015/2016 season.
The Fiftieth Anniversary Tour will be the first time since 2002 that Tharp has toured a group of dancers, and the works presented will celebrate Tharp's now-famous dance-making that blends and blurs the line between ballet and modern dance, pushes our understanding of what dance can be and highlights what has made her so popular on television, Broadway stages and Hollywood films. Over the past five decades, Tharp has choreographed more than 160 works: 129 dances, 12 television specials, six movies, four full-length ballets, four Broadway shows and two figure-skating routines. She has received 19 honorary doctorates, two Emmy Awards, one Tony, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize and a 2009 Kennedy Center honor. In October 2014, she was named the Joyce Theater Foundation's 2014-16 artist-in-residence.
It's a huge coup for our city and TITAS, which will host the work in association with the AT&T Performing Arts Center. They recognized the need for this tour to happen and to happen here, and that's why they are co-commissioning these first two evenings of the tour.
This decision also brings national recognition to TITAS and ATTPAC, as they join four other leading dance partners and performing arts centers across the United States in supporting this tour. Dallas is now on a list of pivotal stops on the dance tour train that contains The Joyce Theatre in New York City and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.-- the two centers who initiated the commissioning of the evening. Besides TITAS and ATTPAC, the other members of the consortium include the Ravinia Festival Association/Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University in Chicago and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. The tour will stop in 15 cities over 10 weeks.
TITAS presents the World Premiere of Twyla Tharp's 50th Anniversary Tour, Friday, September 18 and Saturday, September 19 at 8 p.m. at the Winspear Opera House. Ticket information is forthcoming. Visit www.attpac.org/twyla for developing details.
