Twyla Tharp Dance comes to Macky Auditorium on September 27, 2015, and will feature a recording of a Back piece by Professor of Piano David Korevaar.
This weekend's kick-off of the CU Presents Artist Series will including a piece recorded by College of Music Professor of Piano David Korevaar.
The Twyla Tharp Dance 50th Anniversary Tour brings the legendary American choreographer back to Boulder for the first time since 1979. Sunday night's performance at Macky Auditorium will feature all-new works set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, John Zorn, and Henry Butler and Steven Bernstein.
Of particular note, the company’s “Preludes and Fugues” is set to Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” as performed by David Korevaar, CU-Boulder Professor of Piano, and Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt.
Wrote Tharp recently in The New York Times’ Artist’s Journal: “In 2001, my company had been the last to perform at the World Trade Center’s outdoor plaza. We danced on Saturday night, Sunday was dark and Monday night’s show was rained out. The attack was Tuesday morning. At the time we were rehearsing ‘Movin’ Out,’ a Broadway show with a score to songs by Billy Joel, in Midtown. […] How, I asked myself, was I to justify working on a Broadway show when all around there was only evidence of human destruction? How to justify dancing? Huge headlines were everywhere: WTC I/II down. Suddenly I flashed on another WTC I/II. ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier Volumes I/II’ is the title of Bach’s two-volume set of 48 paired preludes and fugues. I had Prelude in C Major of Volume 1 on my laptop and I began to dance.
“The word I use for Bach is ecumenical. ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ is encyclopedic, it has so many different possibilities of color and form and emotion, a compendium of keys and rhythm, improvisation and intense structural complexity, the simplest of beautiful tunes [...]. His music is a huge umbrella, large enough to accommodate all movement—styles and intentions—and it was this possibility of inclusion and tolerance that allowed me to dance again.”
Twyla Tharp Dance begins at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 27, 2015, at Macy Auditorium. For ticket information, visit CU Presents.
