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Hannah Mount

Spence Ford

Advanced Theatre Dance III

21 November 2017

You Cant Stop the Dance

Somewhere inside something there is a rush of greatness (The Flesh

Failures/Let the Sunshine In, Galt MacDermot). Inside Twyla Tharp and Adam

Shankman there are more than rushes of greatness; there are monsoons of it as

their illustrious careers can attest. Between the two choreographers are multitudes

of works, on stage, on television, in film that range from classical ballet to street

dancing.

Twyla Tharp was born in 1941 in Indiana; her mother insisted she take

lessons in every form of dance and four different musical instruments. She started

college in California but then transferred to Barnard College in NYC and graduated

with a degree in art history in 1963. While she was in New York, Tharp began

studying with Martha Graham, Richard Thomas, and Merce Cunningham. Upon

graduation from college, she joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Two years later

she choreographed her first dance, Tank Dive, and founded her own company, Twyla

Tharp Dance. From 1971-1988 Twyla Tharp Dance toured and performed original

works, then in 88 the company merged with the American Ballet Theatre.

Tharp is responsible for introducing a new sub-genre to musical theatre,

dance musicals. She created Movin Out based on the music of Billy Joel and she took

the songs of Frank Sinatra to create Come Fly Away (originally titled, Come Fly with
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Me). These two shows were presented in a unique format, the band was onstage

with a singer singing all the songs in the show and the cast was comprised entirely

of dancers who conveyed the entirety of the plot through dance. The two works are

widely different in content and show off Tharps incredible range as a director and

choreographer. But aside from her stage credits, Tharp is responsible for the

incredibly expressive choreography in the films Hair and White Nights. She brought

her larger than life choreography to the screen where it could be enjoyed over and

over by film and theatre fanatics alike. The way Tharp tells a story through

movement puts the choreography into the real world; it taps into completely raw

emotions that are usually expressed with words (if at all) in our day-to-day lives.

Words will never do justice the absolutely visceral impact her work has had on

anyone who has seen it and the theatre community in general. Tharp set the bar for

what acting through dance can be; it is so much more than movement to amuse and

entertain the audience, it serves a much bigger purpose.

It seems clear that a work will only succeed if the right people are performing

it and can bring it to life. Tharp utilizes only the most expressive performers and

that is really what sets her work apart from other choreographers, because her style

could be easily compared to that of Jerome Robbins in terms of bodylines and

stylization. Their works include a lot of sharp lines; the steps/motions are strong,

have a high-energy appearance and sense of attack that is almost entirely ignorant

of the gender of the performer. Upon the opening of Movin Out, Tharp said to

Broadway.com, What do I look for in dancers? I look for intelligence, I look for a real

connection; they have to be really connected to their own bodies. That they have,
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obviously, got huge technical range but that they have the imagination and the sense

of adventure that says, okay, I dont know, lets try. It is similar to the idea of a

person wearing an outfit vs. the outfit wearing the person; Tharp brought to the

theatre the idea of the performer breathing life into the work as opposed to thinking

the work is successful regardless of who is performing it. The relationships between

the choreographer, the choreography, and the dancer are all imperative to the

success of the work as a whole.

Having the ability to pick the right people for the job and being able to direct

them are two different skills that Tharp possesses in spades and they make her

work incredibly unique. Looking specifically at her piece Bakers Dozen, very little of

it is executed in a performative style; the dancers and Tharp have created their own

world and the interactions between the dancers in addition to the movement are

what allow the audience to follow their story. Tharp adds moments of simplicity and

humor that make her pieces accessible; in Bakers Dozen a couple enters the stage

while walking in a very simple stylized manner that is reminiscent of the silent film

era and it adds a sincere charm to the moment that helps explain the relationship

between the two dancers. Speaking to her directorial skills, Tharp has an incredible

aptitude for segueing from dialogue to dance and vice versa. In White Nights Mikhail

Baryshnikov performs a routine to Koni by Vladimir Vysotsky, the line preceding

the dance is, No, its like Vysotsky. You whisper his songs, I wont whisper what I

feel. I want to scream like he does. I cant lie anymore. Look at me. Look at me! And

the dance begins with Baryshnikov falling to his knees. The entire routine is filled

with tension and forceful body shapes paired with sharp hits in the music that make
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the viewer believe he is screaming in his first language, dance. It doesnt seem out of

place for Baryshnikov to start dancing because Tharp segued the movement straight

out of his heightened emotional state. Similarly, in Hair when Berger and his friends

crash Sheilas private party and he sings I Got Life; the dancing is indicative of his

current state and is prompted by his friends clearing the table to prep for whatever

outburst Berger might have. Tharp confined Berger to the dining table and yet the

movements were still large and expressive and completely natural to him;

Baryshnikov had a choreographed outburst of anger, Berger had one of joy, but they

both emerged from the emotional state those characters were rooted in prior to the

dance.

On the more commercial side of the dance spectrum we have choreographer

Adam Shankman. Born in 1948 in Los Angeles, it is no wonder his work has such a

strong presence in film and television. Similar to Tharp, Shankman was born into a

family with some artistic inclination as is father was an entertainment

lawyer/manager for acts like Barry White and Sister Sledge. After graduating high

school, Shankman worked with the Childrens Theatre Company in Minneapolis and

then moved on to study dance at Julliard without any previous formal training. He

then dropped out of college to be a musical theatre dancer and at 19 was cast in his

first show, West Side Story, with the Michigan Opera Theater. Upon moving back to

L.A., he started working as a dancer in music videos for artists such as Janet Jackson

and Paula Abdul and then began choreographing for similar artists. Shankmans

work began to spread to film and television, not only was he choreographing, he

became a director. He directed and choreographed the film adaptations of the

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musicals Hairspray and Rock of Ages. Although his most notable contribution might

be choreographing Once More With Feeling, the musical episode of Buffy the

Vampire Slayer that has since become a cult classic.

Adam Shankman is responsible for keeping this generation, the millennials,

interested in dance. His work on So You Think You Can Dance, Glee, and the Step Up

franchise have helped to keep this important art form in the public eye so it might

inspire the next progressive choreographer or performer. His work is current and

accessible but walks that fine line between bold and dynamic and totally contrived.

Most dance that appears on screen runs the risk of seeming incredibly fake and

unrealistic, Shankman does a brilliant job of creating worlds in his films as well as

the ones he collaborates on where the dancing never seems out of place; thats a

marvelous skill. Although, there are times where the dancing is out of place on

purpose, i.e. Once More With Feeling, but because its done so blatantly, the

audience accepts and encourages it.

Each piece Shankman choreographs could easily be taken out of context and

survive as a standalone music video. His style is incredibly representative of his past

experience as a music video dancer and the flashy storytelling choreography. In Hit

Me With Your Best Shot from Rock of Ages, you have the immensely assertive

Catherine Zeta Jones leading her troupe of righteous women down the aisle between

the pews performing what could be mistaken for a Sunday morning kickboxing

class. Its intense, its powerful, its as clich as the 80s have ever been and thats

why it works. Shankman stays true to the time period and place, but puts a slight

cartoon-ish spin on it. In Welcome to the 60s from Hairspray, Shankman utilizes a
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combination of traditional social dances from the 60s (the jerk, the twist, and the

pony) and some ballet and musical theatre style jazz movements that helps up the

wow-factor and level of difficulty giving the routine a larger than life appearance.

It is at this point that the similarities between Twyla Tharp and Adam

Shankman become glaringly apparent. Both choreographers have a propensity for

meshing their root-style of dance, in Shankmans case its commercial jazz and in

Tharps its ballet/modern, with other styles. None of their works utilize dance just

for the sake of making people dance, each step and routine serves a purpose to

further the story or style of the larger work. The integral difference between the two

artists is how their work flows with the story; Shankman creates standalone

sequences that dont necessarily segue directly in and out of the storyline but still

gel while Tharp creates dances from life that flow seamlessly in and out of whatever

script shes working from and would never need a jump cut. They both have

vivacious styles, Shankman just brings that extra burst of cartoony creativity while

Tharp pulls from the deep emotions of humanity that make her works so

compelling. One choreographer makes people laugh, the other makes them cry but

they both make all of them feel.

Twyla Tharp helps keep dance close to its roots and to the people who

inspire it while Adam Shankman brings it to the masses and keeps them coming to

the cinemas and inspiring them to visit the theatre. Shankman serves as a gateway

drug to theatre that would help bring more millennials to explore Tharps work, but

one must have a base appreciation for storytelling through dance to even begin to

understand what Tharp has given this community. One operates in realism, while
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the other has a more fantastical approach, but they both accomplish the same goal:

inspiring works that move and entertain the audience.

Works Cited

Twyla Tharp, In The Upper Room, YouTube

Twyla Tharp, On the Scene: Movin Out Opening Night, YouTube

Twyla Tharp, Bakers Dozen, YouTube

Forman, Milo, director. Hair. YouTube, United Artists, 1979.

Hackford, Taylor, director. White Nights. YouTube, Columbia Pictures, 1985.

Shankman, Adam, director. Hairspray. YouTube, New Line Cinema, 2007.

Whedon, Joss. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - "Once More With Feeling". Gostream.is, 20th

Century Fox, 1992.

Shankman, Adam, director. Rock of Ages. YouTube, Warner Home Video, 2012.