DANCE REVIEW : Tharp: Impish Ace Returns to New York

After four years of lying low and a recent barrage of interviews in which she sounded extra-snappish, Twyla Tharp has re-entered the limelight as a savvy and endearing trouper and an ace dance-maker. Now pushing 51, the salt-and-pepper-haired dynamo of an imp brought an invigorating array of dances and dancers to the New York City Center on Tuesday for a two-week season.

“And, boy, do we need it now,” the sell-out crowds seemed to be saying in their ovations for the offerings from Tharp and her new “project.”

The outspoken director of this vibrant and appealing group of 18 dancers chooses not to use the word “company.” After consistently keeping a company for 25 years, prior to 1988, Tharp now works on isolated projects. She refuses to be tied down, or to tie dancers down, to longstanding commitments.

The expert and mostly extraordinary performers working on this project include four guests from the Paris Opera, one guest and three disaffected dancers from New York City Ballet, and some fresh and some familiar faces from Tharp’s own modern-dance milieu.

Tharp’s connection to classical ballet began in earnest during the ‘70s with both the Joffrey Ballet and American Ballet Theatre, particularly with Mikhail Baryshnikov. The opening gala was arranged to show everyone off, including Patrick Dupond, the young director of the Paris troupe, as guest artist. Appearing in “Grand Pas: Rhythm of the Saints,” the flamboyant danseur proved as cheeky as Paul Simon, the ballet’s composer, was matter-of-fact in curtain calls.

Choreography for classical dancers dominated the new works unveiled on the season’s first nights. “Octet,” set to a contemporary jazz score by bassist Edgar Meyer, opened the gala seductively. Dressed by Santo Loquasto (as is the whole repertory) in basic black leotards uniquely cut off as shorts, four pointe-prancing beauties dominate this eightsome. Each woman has a male mate, equally starkly attired, but not equally prominent. The men dart and swivel and kick lavishly, but the women have more and do more with it.

“Sextet,” had its world premiere on the third night. Set to an original score of Afro-Caribbean inspired music by Bob Telson, this dance focuses equally on its men and its women. Overriding the impressively smooth and slippery virtuosity of these six individuals is their visual and dramatic force as coupled units. Tharp’s drawing them together for duets and individualizing them for solos is marvelously deft.

With the women dressed in delicate, gossamer wrappers of dresses and the men in filmy shirts and loose trousers, the affair has a dreamlike atmosphere. The public display and private reverie inherent to couple dancing co-exist as elusively interchangeable aspects.

Facing the issue of face-to-face couple-dancing is the witty and penetrating subject of “Men’s Piece,” the new work in which Tharp makes another of her performing comebacks. After officially retiring from dancing in 1984, Tharp has un-retired a few times before, but nowhere so personally or sweetly as in this theater piece about dancing.

Arranged like some spontaneous work session on a bare, open stage, “Men’s Piece” is really about Tharp’s being a woman in dance. Nattering on about whither couple-dancing today while directing four of her male dancers through some related paces, the inimitably twitchy, feisty and funny Tharp takes her audience on a circuitous route of philosophizing and dancing. Even after eliciting comments from her audience, she presents no punch line. Her piece fades gently to black as she’s coupled with Brian Haynsworth, her unaffected, non-dancing tech man, whose part in this work is one of heart-rending innocence.

Revivals of classic/pop Tharp works from the ‘70s and ‘80s amplify the repertory. If the original luster of some of these has faded in parts, the underlying oceans of motion--in a piece such as “Ocean’s Motion,” for example--can still entertain. Meanwhile, the flashing brightness of the new works and their happy dancers entertain and inspirit like little else around today.