Oldies but not Goodies: Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room and Nine Sinatra Songs in New York

Beyoncé, Adele, Shakira, and... Twyla. It takes a special artist to be recognized by just their first name. Unlike those pop stars, Twyla Tharp is a choreographer with over 160 pieces to her credit. These include everything from 1965’s Tank Dive, where she, then an experimental creator, balanced in an X, to 2002’s Movin’ Out, a jukebox musical of Billy Joel songs.

Now 81, she could retire to Florida, yet she continues to revive older works and occasionally premiere new ones. For her 2022 run at New York City Center, she pairs In the Upper Room (1986) with Nine Sinatra Songs (1982), shown in that order. Explaining the choice to program the crowd-pleasing number before the introspective one, she told The New York Times, “The Sinatra is a series of relationships. The pandemic was about individual survival and extended community survival, but not really about relationships.”

Well, that’s one way to sell tickets to a performance of two well-known yet middle-aged works. Both captivate at moments; however, they comment more on who we were than who we have become. I felt disillusioned as I remembered what these pieces meant to me then and how slight and showbizzy they register to me now.

Unspooling to a riveting score of electronica by minimalist master Philip Glass, In the Upper Room features 13 lissome beauties. They sport prison stripes with flashes of red that ultimately overtake the palette. During this Jane-Fonda-meets-George-Balanchine romp, they fan-kick, they jeté, they shuffle, and they shimmy – all with toothy grins. The latter isn’t a critique. I was smiling, too, because Glass’ music revs like a sonic bullet train, sweeping up anyone listening into a cascade of propulsive rhythms.

Tharp leaves no razzmatazz trope unrepresented. Cliques of dancers, some in pointe shoes, others in sneakers, play with counterpoint and whip through canons. Fog machines labor extra hard to keep the stage drenched in mist.

Fortunately, the cast was seasoned enough to sell the schmaltzy exuberance. Lloyd Knight, Reed Tankersley, and Richard Villaverde were a slick-with-sweat, bare-chested trio, barreling here and there with winking verve. Cassandra Trenary could do no wrong as the ballerina whose body is manipulated like origami. The legacy of Louis XIV lives in Daniel Ulbricht, who breathed literal life into the balletic academicism peppered throughout.

For all the punchy performances, the downsides of a pick-up company became apparent pretty much immediately. The dancers included hotshots from New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Martha Graham Dance Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Freelance artists, a circus star, and regular Tharp collaborators rounded out the lively miscellany.

They were all good, but they were not all good together. Everyone moved to a different internal metronome. Some attacked the steps with stiletto sharpness, while others languidly acknowledged the beat at the last possible second. Enough unison appeared that the stage often looked like popcorn.

This problem didn’t exist in the structurally different Nine Sinatra Songs, where seven duets evoke trite romances. Two group numbers to “My Way,” placed at the halfway and end points, function as a minor and later a major climax. Although Sinatra’s philosophical crooning sounds as interesting as it did in the 20th century, this piece is one stale cliché after the next.

Tuxedo-clad men and women in sparkly dresses forgo the ground for the air. Each duet transpires as an unmemorable, unbroken torrent of swirly lifts, graceful dips, and dramatic overhead poses. You don’t have to keep your eyes peeled for the caught-in-midair cheerleader split because it happens in almost every section. Only That’s Life stood out for Ulbricht and Jeanette Delgado’s flirty riposting. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but Nine Sinatra Songs seems like the concert dance version of a cruise ship cabaret. To wit: a massive disco ball looms over the proceedings like a gaudy moon.

For all the influences Tharp has absorbed into her movement, ballroom sure isn’t one of them. Forget the streamlined elegance of a proper closed dance position. Here, couples clutch each other, stiff yet slump-shouldered, like a couple of high schoolers at prom. The rhythms undergirding the lyrics – I counted a rumba, mambo and foxtrot among them – remain unexamined beyond the occasional pitter-patter of footwork.

For all my grumbling, the evening wasn’t without its charms. Yet I left deeply underwhelmed though both pieces received standing ovations (the one for Nine Sinatra Songs was more subdued). The problem isn’t with the works. It’s with me. I’ve changed, and the works haven’t. But the works can’t change. They aren’t porous enough to be anything other than what they are – a full-throttle celebration of ‘80s excess and cheesiness. As Sinatra would say, “That’s life.”