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Cutting Up with Tharp and Baryshnikov
| Article
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10885 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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5 / 1993 |
2,023 Words |
| Author
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Octavio Roca
Octavio Roca is music critic for the Washington Times and the
author of the biography Scotto: More Than a Diva. |
Twyla Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov and back together, and their Twyla & Misha Traveling Show may turn out to be the most financially successful dance venture of 1993. The veteran choreographer and the most beloved living dancer, longtime friends, have been joined by nine young dancers for something Tharp calls Cutting Up. There is no reason to doubt any motives, of course, and every reason to suppose a real artistic affinity.
For his part, Mikhail Baryshnikov has had a long and noble record of searching for new artistic challenges. It was this drive that let him variously to the West and freedom, to Balanchine, to the movies and theater, and back to the stage. May it lead him to William Forsythe, Lucinda Childs, or other modern choreographers who can make better use of the unique instrument he embodies. Aging dancers who happen to be geniuses are best served by choreographers who can still challenge them while tailoring steps to their changing physical limitations. There are many touching examples, including several ravishing ballets Alberto Mendez set for the great Alicia Alonso in her fifties and sixties. Kenneth MacMillan created the role of the Old Emperor for the not-terribly-old Anthony Dowell three years ago. In 1992, Roland Petit created the role of Charlie Chaplin in the intensely emotional Charlus for his old friend and favorite dancer Luigi Bonino. Someone who knows and loves Baryshnikov's art must make new dances for him, because it is clear that this mans still has a lot to give.
As for Tharp, what could have been more clever than to turn the world's most exquisitely classical male dancer into a Pop animal? She had done this before, and she returns to that joke in Cutting Up. Her new creation has enjoyed sold-out houses in twenty-four cities since last November, from Toronto to Mexico City Montreal to Atlanta, before winding in February in Boston.
Intentions are not everything, however. The proof of the proverbial pudding is in the eating, and this light dessert is very hard to swallow. Cutting Up is not quite unbearable, but it is eminently unnecessary. If Tharp has the required choreographic gift to sustain a single theme for an entire evening, she does not show it here.
Among the few saving graces of Cutting Up, seen in January at the newly renovated Warner Theater in Washington, D.C., are two exquisite moments danced by Baryshniko. One is a reprise of the soulful One for my Baby from Tharp's 1982 Nine Sinatra Songs, which has Baryshnikov in rumpled khaki and loose tie bursting with the grace of Fred Astaire
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