Twyla Tharp Dance gives a 60th anniversary performance at the Lensic

A coast-to-coast celebration of Twyla Tharp’s 60th year as a choreographer brings two of her most exciting dance pieces to Santa Fe.

The program offers a rare opportunity to experience “Diabelli,” Tharp’s notoriously difficult masterpiece inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Diabelli Variations.” “Diabelli” has almost never been performed since its world premiere in Palermo, Italy, in 1998.

The second part of the program showcases a brand-new piece, “SLACKTIDE,” set to Phillip Glass’ “Aguas da Amazonia,” demonstrating Tharp’s continued innovation.

Although Tharp is not touring with the company, she spent months working closely with the dancers in New York City.

Miriam Gittens, a Juilliard graduate who won the Princess Grace Honoraria Award for Dance in 2024, said being part of Twyla Tharp Dance has been “amazing.”

Twyla Tharp Dance gives a 60th anniversary performance at the Lensic

“There’s a great sense of camaraderie amongst the group, and I think (Tharp) does something really spectacular in choosing a group of dancers who will work together well and dance together well,” she said. “We’ve built a bond, and I think that is all owed to her.”

Gittens was also wowed by Tharp’s unflagging creative energy.

“She never stops. She keeps going, and she’s constantly curious,” Gittens said. “There’s always a vibrancy and an energy when you’re around her. I’m sure that is one of the many reasons she has been so successful.”

At 25, Kyle Halford is the youngest dancer in the company.

“I kinda have to zoom out every once in a while and remind myself that I’m already at such a cool place in my career,” he said.

Tharp, after all, is a legend.

“Her experience is so vast that you can’t really put her into any specific category,” he said.

Former Twyla Tharp dancer and company manager Alexander Brady agreed.

“Nobody choreographs like she does,” Brady said. “When she first started working, ballet and modern dance were like opposing camps, and she was one of the first to cross over. But she’s definitely got her own choreographic voice.”

Tharp is known for the extreme precision of her choreography, too. Brady gave an example from “Diaballi.”

“She does a lot of complicated cannons. A cannon is when people are dancing a few counts apart. They’re doing the same choreography and one person is doing the step on five and the other person is doing seven. But in order for those things to make sense, you have to be incredibly accurate with musicality, or else it’ll just become a big smudge.”

Despite the rigorous and exacting nature of the dances, they are not meant to be performed robotically. Brady said it has always been important to Tharp that her dancers use their minds.

“She’s like an artist with clay, but clay that can think,” Brady said. “I mean, you’d be a fool not to take advantage of the fact that these are all thinking, creative people who have something to offer.”

Halford agreed. “It’s inspiring to see how much independence she gives us,” he said. “It makes you really wanna step up to the plate and put your best self into the work.”

Paradoxically, the freedom Tharp gives her dancers sometimes takes the form of constraints. For “SLACKTIDE,” Halford said Tharp gave him an “impossible task.”

“In the very beginning, I have this piece of choreography that I’m doing. But she wanted me to do it without a single transition in sight. She almost wanted it to look like I wasn’t even moving, because you never see a stop or a start,” he said.

“The base phrase that I had originally learned from her had these stops and starts, and all these dynamics. She wanted me to eliminate all of that while still maintaining the integrity of that phrase she had taught me,” he said.

Tharp worked with Halford for many days, pushing him to find multiple solutions to the puzzle.

“It still continues to be a challenge,” he said, “which is exciting.”

The two dances in the program are very different but complement each other well.

According to Brady, “Diaballi” contains “all of her knowledge and genius,” while “SLACKTIDE” is “more user-friendly.”

“Diaballi” was inspired by Beethoven’s “Diaballi Variations” — 33 musical variations on a simple waltz — which provided Tharp a scaffolding on which to hang a panoply of choreographic techniques.

“Double time, halftime, retrograde — she does it all,” Brady said.

Dance nerds can geek out on Tharp’s double-time retrograde inversions. But even those without a dance background can enjoy the humor in “Diaballi.”

“Sometimes she’ll have these quirky little Twyla Tharp-y kind of jiggly weird hip wiggles and things like that. When you put them on top of the formalized movements, it’s funny,” Brady said.

“There’s another scene where it’s just two guys. Each one’s trying to stand in front of the other, like trying to one-up the other,” Brady said. “That’s very funny.”

Still, “Diaballi” may be taxing on some audiences, because it demands sustained attention. “SLACKTIDE,” on the other hand, has more of a laid-back party vibe.

“It’s got a lot of color, a lot of cool lighting, and this great percussive Phillip Glass music,” Brady said. “In some ways, that’s your reward.”

Brady will be on-hand for a preperformance Q&A moderated by Lensic Performing Arts Center executive director Joel Aalberts.

Brady said he is especially excited to come to Santa Fe. “There’s a great dance community there and a lot of people who support dance.”