Word: tharp
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Splat Falls. Push Comes to Shove is the name of the ballet; its inventor is Choreographer Twyla Tharp. Last week it was unveiled by the American Ballet Theater at Manhattan's Uris Theater, and it just might be the most important event of the dance year. With cinematic speed, the cast of characters tumbles around the stage to the sounds of Haydn's 82nd Symphony. Isn't that Buster Keaton? There's Joe Namath and a courtful of jokers, heroes and heroines all. Linked by sheer velocity, the steps merge in combinations that are silly...
...Tharp has already been called a number of things: the Busby Berkeley of the '70s, a modern Nijinska, a female Balanchine. She has also been put down as modish, cute, instantly disposable-a Bette Midler of dance. "I just don't think ballet is as narrow as many people do," says Tharp. An unabashed eclectic, she does not hesitate to combine a Las Vegas chorine's high kick-or a baseball pitcher's windup-with a classic ballet pas. The result eludes stylistic categorizing, yet remains instantly recognizable as Tharp choreography...
...characteristic swivels and slides may look improvised, but Tharp's dances are planned down to the final blink. At rehearsals she snapped out commands: "Soft elbows, make sure you lift your skirts, ladies, watch your eleves," or "That retard should last forever, Marianna-you have a full second." In Tharp time, a second is an eternity. Her dancers are given a lot to do in the space of a beat. In one seemingly continuous motion, swaying hips slink into wiggles that burst into furious pirouettes, then stop on a dime and reverse directions. It is as if Tharp worked...
Even the swift, strong Baryshnikov at first felt pushed by the pace of Tharp's choreography. "Misha learned something about dancing fast," says Tharp...
...hardest things for him, however, was the vaudeville soft-shoe movement. Says Tharp: "It's not virtuoso dancing-all you do is handle a hat. You simply imply that you dance so well that you dare the audience to watch you. It requires a Gary Grant refinement...