I often think of Beethoven as the greatest undanceable composer. He favored short motifs as melodies (the famous theme to his Fifth Symphony is only four notes!), and then developed those motifs through harmony. And considering how few dance works are set to Beethoven, it looks like choreographers agree with me.
Therefore, esteemed choreographer Twyla Tharp’s attempt to choreograph Beethoven was an event. Diabelli (1998), despite being more than 25 years old, had until last night never been seen in New York. It headlined Tharp’s Diamond Jubilee at City Center.
Diabelli is set to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, one of his last published works. It is a sprawling, one-hour theme-and-variations piano composition that takes a short, jaunty tune by Diabelli and creates 33 different variations. By the time he composed Diabelli Variations, Beethoven was profoundly deaf, but the inventiveness of the variations revealed an obviously laser-sharp mind that still “heard” the world in an incredibly complex way.
Would Twyla Tharp be able to match the magnificence of Beethoven’s music with her steps? Alas, she would not. Diabelli starts off well. Ten dancers are dressed in black pants and sleeveless tuxedo tops. The mood is lighthearted, full of happy jumps and athletic, upside-down lifts. There were logrolls and leapfrogs. Women often ride piggy-back on the men. Endless combinations: group dances, solos, duets, trios. Male-male, male-female. I liked it, until maybe about halfway through the work. Then I realized that the pleasant camaraderie I was seeing onstage simply didn’t match the music. If I closed my eyes and just listened to the music, I wasn’t losing much, and if I opened my eyes, it would be more of the same.
One moment was a highlight. One of Beethoven’s variations sounds a lot like the modern-day “jitterbug” and that was what Tharp choreographed. I also enjoyed the solos for Renan Cerdeiro, a former dancer with the Miami City Ballet who still commands the stage effortlessly. But overall, Diabelli was never as interesting as the music that accompanied it. You didn’t see the music, you just heard the music. Beethoven always overshadowed Tharp. I feel the same way about Robbins’ Goldberg Variations: music that overwhelms the choreography.
Intermission, and we saw Slacktide (2025), a collaboration between Tharp and Philip Glass. This is much more in Tharp’s comfort zone, and it showed. Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia combines the famous arpeggios with an Afro-Caribbean dance beat. And the vibe was indeed a dance party. After the slow-mo crawling intro, things picked up. Colors in the background changed. The moves combined modern dance with club dancing (lots of undulating arms and torsos). Unlike Diabelli, this time you saw the music. The steps were an organic response to Glass’s score.
At times, Tharp was quoting other dance masters. I even saw echoes of Balanchine’s Serenade and the famous Waltz Girl fall.The central dancer was Reed Tankersley, whose unconventional physique hid a lithe, elastic dancing style. He did it all. Running, jumping, skipping, somersaults. He even did the iconic Esplanade belly slides.
I do wish the costumes were as colorful as the dancing. Instead, they were drab black, loose-fitting workout clothes. But Slacktide was genuinely fun. At the end of the evening, both Philip Glass and Twyla Tharp took their bows to thunderous applause.
Despite my reservations about Diabelli, there is no doubt Twyla Tharp is one of the most inventive, adventurous voices in dance still (and she's 83). She deserves her flowers.
