Twyla Tharp 50th Anniversary Tour: Dallas

I didn't get to see the Rolling Stones play this year, and I'm geographically too far away from seeing Pope Francis in person on his visit, but I did do something a bit different. Twyla Tharp's 50th Anniversary Tour began in Dallas at the Winspear Opera House (AT&T Performing Arts Center) on September 18 and 19, 2015. I attended on the second night and was thrilled to see it.

I do not know much about the technical aspects of dance and its choreography, but I do know when I like something, and I found this event mesmerizing and great fun: spectacle, music and dance choreographed with both respect and a sense of humor.  

Twyla Tharp is quoted in the program with regards to her organizing principle: "Simply put, PRELUDES AND FUGUES is the world as it ought to be. YOWZIE as it is. The FANFARES celebrate both."

The night proceeded in this order:

FIRST FANFARE

- PAUSE -

PRELUDES AND FUGUES

- INTERMISSION -

SECOND FANFARE

-PAUSE-

YOWZIE

[- FINIS -]

"Preludes and Fugues" revolved around piano music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. "Yowzie" was constructed around early blues/jazz songs by Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, and others. The whole second part of the night was wilder and more energetic than the first -- which was perfect, not least because audience members could bring "spirits" netted during the intermission to their seats, so long as they had lids on them. 

It was astonishingly pleasing to hear the pounding and thumping of bare feet on the stage, to see it all in person -- a much more exciting experience than seeing such things on a small glass screen.

The dress of the dancers contrasted between halves. For the Bach piano vibe, the men wore what looked to me like simple outfits from the time of the French Revolution or Napoleonic era. The women wore shorter outfits, more like flappers from the 1920s or pre-flappers from ancient times with colorful fabrics. The differences between the attire of the men and women was both anachronistic and cool. Much stranger were the outfits worn by both women and men after the intermission. Think bright, colorful ragtag clothes with the vibe of Billy Idol in "Dancing with Myself" -- sort of 70s punk meets 80s garish tones mixed within a hallucinated dreamscape. In other words: bizarre. Especially because the dancers moved around the stage to musical classics of the first half of the 20th century. Again, both anachronistic and cool.

Which all reminds me: it's good to stretch, get out of the same old, same old routines. My little synapses were firing away, taking it all in. A dash of pinot noir aided me.

Twyla Tharp is astonishing. She came out afterwards and spoke to a sizable subset of the overall audience, that portion which remained after the main performance. She fielded questions. Until this point, the only languages I'd heard around me (when seated elsewhere) were Portuguese, Russian, Italian and Queen's English. In the Q & A, American English was spoken.  

I've already written some about her earlier work with David Byrne on The Catherine Wheel project.  Let me add that Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life (with Mark Reiter, 2006) is a useful and entertaining book, especially for the creatively inclined. For her 50th anniversary tour, you can access Twyla Tharp's NY Times blog here. 

This North American tour (or part thereof) proceeds next to the mountain states, the West Coast, Austin, New Orleans, Bloomington, Toronto, East Lansing, Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York City. Can you dig? I'd see it again if I could. 

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Zen in the Art of Writing (Take II)

From Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing (1990, 1992), let's consider his LIST.

Before the list, there's Twyla Tharp's warmup exercise, BECOME A VERB. Take a verb and perform it -- so suggests the dancer-choerographer for getting ideas to (rather literally) flow. Example: Wiggle. Another example: Twist. Another: Duck. Another: Cover.

And now THE LIST, "Trusting my subconscious [and Muse] to give bread, as it were, to the birds" (Bradbury, Zen, page 17).

Here goes (caps in original):

THE LAKE. THE NIGHT. THE CRICKETS. THE RAVINE. THE ATTIC. THE BASEMENT. . . THE BABY. THE CROWD . . . THE CARNIVAL. THE CAROUSEL. THE DWARF. . . THE SKELETON (Ditto, page 17).

From THE LIST, Bradbury derived the setting or "spine" of a story or core idea. Pretty neat, Ray.

Here's a random "rip" from one of my sets of saved lists, mostly a compilation of notes from scraps of paper, napkins, notecards, etc. It's sort of like William S. Burroughs and Brian Gysin's cut-up method, or halfway there. Looking at these strings of words, sometimes I know the origin, sometimes not. Sometimes I know how to pick them up, sometimes I'd have to start afresh:

el griffe tampico pirates

otters water dogs

checkpointe charlie on the esplanade

preservation hall

howlin’ wolf

the fat of the land

the dirty shames

general kirkland

the remains of ira slack

“I find the film in the editing" -- David Charron -- "I have to develop a structure”

“it just came to me, man”

Angelman syndrome

guy on wheelchair and american flag,  whipping behind cars, flies up and into the smoke shop!

“He ain't got no impulse control”

fugue state

Even Those Who Remember

History Are Still

Doomed to Repeat It

LA, Hamburg -- zen

let's it speak for itself - still, choices

theatreless theatre

this is the way it is

things that are lost

in search of lost time

Paris, Texas, close to the Red River

uniformed assassins

pearls and swine
voilent voiler veil to veil  veiled past
king of hearts

june has left the building

meritocracy vs. aristocracy

who died and made you king?

alexander kent novels

bats and rats are where it's at

pensive
1776 Ben Franklin
humpty dumpty

the difference between hessians and modern mercenaries

mercy for and administering to the afflicted

Cyrus

dusty springfield, the cake

when the battle is over (who shall wear the crown?)

now gather round people and listen to this . . .

play guitar play

“If baseball was any slower paced it'd be farming”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Have you tried lists? I've got lists of proper names -- people, places, etc. -- and various words I want to remember; phrases; slang; core ideas; reminders; remembrances; and references. It never stops -- "until the end." How about yours?

Today's Rune: Wholeness.

Zen in the Art of Writing (Take I)

Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing (1990, 1992) provides an entertaining and energetic primer for just about any interested party. It's infectious. Read a handful of pages and you come away brimming with ideas, rearing to go.

Try this one for size: "You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."  Amen to that!

Q: "What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?"

And, apropos of the Martin-Zimmerman encounter: When was the last time you were stopped by the police in your neighborhood because you like to walk, and perhaps think, at night? It happened to me just often enough that, irritated, I wrote 'The Pedestrian,' a story of a time, fifty years from now, when a man is arrested and taken off for clinical study because he insists on looking at un-televised reality, and breathing un-air-conditioned air. . . (page 6).

Finally, there's THE LIST, an unfolding group of nouns (sometimes with modifiers) -- providing a lifetime of evolving ideas . . . not unlike Twyla Tharp's "pretend you're a verb" strategy for the longterm.

Here's to staying drunk on writing. Huzzah!

Today's Rune: Fertility.   

Boxes! The Good Kind

Stockholm Office Boxes -- Bigso™ Box of Sweden -- The Container Store®

The possibilities are endless, but let's start with Twyla Tharp's project boxes. She puts ideas and related objects and papers in boxes specifically organized by project. There's no need for meticulous OCD organization here -- just put related things in a thematically labeled box and pull them out to look at as needed. Now they can be found again easily.

I've become more and more a fan of smaller boxes, because they're easier to move around and have proven more practical (and lighter) than an older filing system.

My utilization of container boxes is evolving. I have found good choices at Target Stores. The Container Store has an abundant range of boxes in different shapes, sizes, and materials. They have archival-grade containers also.

A few examples of how I've been using boxes lately, and what's in them.

1) To gather all electronics-related cords and chargers in one place.

2) Most recent year's correspondence in multiple boxes, organized by correspondent or type of correspondence.

3) Business cards and related items.

4) Small gifts for later distribution.

5) Cards and stationary, some holiday-related for later use.

6) Brochures of places to visit, or places visited that I intend to write about.

7) Manuscripts, notes and ideas for specific projects.

Just listing the above gives me more ideas.

Some of my favorite types of all-purpose boxes come from The Container Store. They're pictured at top: Stockholm Office Boxes (Bigso Box of Sweden). There are letterboxes, document boxes, and so forth. I employ a lot of their boxes that measure about 13.5" x 10" and about 3.25" deep.  I like multiple colors and patterns. If you are into color-coding, these would be perfect. If not, it's nice to have variety with splashes of color.

Here's a link to The Container Store, for scores of ideas and choices:  http://www.containerstore.com/shop

Have you found effective uses for boxes or other containers? Other ideas or examples?

Today's Rune: Defense.

To Think Outside the Box, First You Need the Box

I happily read some more pages out of Twyla Tharp's inspiring marvelous wonderful beautiful nifty-fifty lovely helpful tome, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide (with Mark Reitner;* New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003). Taking it closely, nice.

Who is Twyla Tharp? 

Twyla Tharp is a famous artist -- choreographer, dancer and so on. She will be 72 next Monday.

Once you've heard the name Twyla Tharp -- unless it goes in one ear and out the other, or you literally cannot hear -- you remember.

Once you've seen the name Twyla Tharp -- unless it goes in one eye and out the other, or you literally cannot see or have no working memory -- you remember.

Twyla Tharp first flew across my radar screen via The Catherine Wheel (1981), but she did a gazillion projects before that and has since done a gazillion more.

Now you know a little something about Twyla Tharp if you didn't already; if it's still not clicking, check her out on Wikipedia or something. Live a little!

This is all leading up to the title of Chapter 5 in the book: Before You Can Think out of the Box, You Have to Start with a Box.

In this chapter, Twyla Tharp gives examples of her project boxes, from ideas and conception to completion and archiving. Real simple approach to production. Real good one, too. More on the practical use of boxes (or other containers) in the next "post."

Above: From Jon Ronson's pithy 2008 documentary Stanley Kubrick's Boxes. Containers come in many colors, shapes and sizes nowadays. All aboard for funtime!    

Today's Rune: Protection. *Mark Reiter is Owner, The Reiter Agency and has co-written, edited, represented and/or written many a book.

 

Hello, My Name Is . . .

Before I get back to reading Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide (2003), here's a little something she delves into: the power of names. Her real name, she observes, inspired her to do something different in life, and for that she's abundantly thankful. But, she also notes, anyone can rename themselves if they so choose, and for whatever reason. Maybe it's a symbolic religious choice, or a political one. Or maybe one feels inspired by something completely different. Maybe a person takes a shine to a moniker given by others, or decides to take up a stage name, or a pen name.

Now we're getting into all sorts of identity dimensions. 

Tharp dives deeper into the idea, but that's without me reaching for the book and quoting anything else outright.

One type of name is the one name. Off the top of my head, there are such folks as Prince, or the Artist Formerly Known as Prince; Madonna; Twiggy; Sade; the great Voltaire; Adele; Selena.

Another type combines two names, like Lady Gaga and Iggy Pop, Joey Ramone, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious.

Others take a middle name, or go with initials, keeping their gender or other variable mysterious, often to break down or outflank barriers of some kind.

What do you think? Have you toyed with your name over the years? Was there a trigger or inspiration? Do you emphasize, like or prefer part of your name? Or have you ever transformed your name entirely like Malcolm X or Muhammad Ali?

 

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

  

Habit, Ritual, Travel and Music

Today's journey took me in the air first to St. Louis, where from above I saw many flooded areas, and then to Raleigh-Durham (more flooding) and finally on to Saxapahaw, North Carolina, from where I'm now posting. The main event is Father's Day weekend, but there are extracurriculars made possible out of extra good luck, kismet, fate or some mysterious equivalent. This very same weekend, Tibetan monks are in town creating a sand mandala (The Wheel of Time or something like it); and also, Dexter Romweber will be playing here -- I saw him first perform when he was a teenager! Since then, he's done all sorts of intense things from Flat Duo Jets with his sister Sara on drums (proto-White Stripes) to various and sundry other projects. His fierce spirit will continue to be evident with The New Romans in Saxapahaw, I have no doubt.

In transit, I only just began Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. A Practical Guide (2003). She quickly brings up the benefits of ritual behavior in her work. Before we delve into this trope at greater length in a future post, let's step back a moment. Here are my questions for the day. What sort of rituals do you perform regularly? A sample or two will be fine. And: how many rituals have you continued performing even during travel? And: have you made any major changes to these kinds of things over time?

One of my rituals: I silently recited many a Hail Mary on my flights today. They were nutty, full rides. 

Today's Rune: Protection.  

David Byrne: "The Catherine Wheel"

Real cool album is this: David Byrne's "The Catherine Wheel" (1981) / The Complete Score from the Broadway Production of "The Catherine Wheel" Choreographed by Twyla Tharp (CD 1987, 1990). A mix of ambient music and bizarro songs, perfect for writing or spacing out to. Also as a backdrop for cross-country night driving, such as during a coast-to-coast trip with Linda in 1982.

Music by Byrne, Eno, Adrian Belew and many others, including Twyla Tharp on "water pot."  Tracks that stand out sharply in memory (had the vinyl and cassette, now downloading the expanded version via iTunes):

"His Wife Refused:" including the line, These people are savages -- Byrne's ear for human pronouncements is always right on target. Compare with former Blackwater mercenary tycoon Erik Prince's spewings at Ann Arbor this past January: "[T]hese people, they crawled out of the sewer . . . They're barbarians. . ."  Reminds also of Iggy Pop's wicked satire "Watching the News" from "Zombie Birdhouse," 1982: Where is the US Navy?!

"My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks):" Well, it ain't my fault . . . things gone wrong . . .

"Big Business:" Think you've had enough? Big Business, after the shake-up . . . stop talking, help us get ready . . . 

"Eggs in a Briar Patch:"   Lord, I've been such a bad boy . . .

"Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open):" Have I been dreaming or have I been sick? 

Looking around again lately, seeing what's going on, I'm thinking that last one is a very good question, indeed.

Today's Rune:  Partnership.

City of Women

To me, Debbie Harry (b. 1945) persists as the sexiest rock star of all time.


The tragically depressed Peg Entwistle (1908-1932). After appearing in Thirteen Women (1932) with Myrna Loy (who, three years older, plays a vengeful Chinese woman), Ms. Entwistle climbed to the top of the famous Hollywood sign and took a swan dive to her death. Myrna Loy, of course, went on to Thin Man fame, playing Nora Charles. Indeed, Loy survived four husbands and lived until 1993.


Geneviève Bujold is fantastic in Le roi de coeur / King of Hearts (1966) opposite Alan Bates. The movie itself is a bittersweet anti-war satire set in a French town about to be blown up by the retreating Germans. The story revolves around escaped inmates of a lunatic asylum. It's a choice film for my "The Great War and the 1920s" class.

Today's Rune: Joy. July 1st: 2007 at midpoint.

Heap'o'Birthdays: Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, Léon Jouhaux, Georgia Tom Dorsey, William Wyler (b. Wilhelm Weiller), Estée Lauder (b. Josephine Esther Mentzer), Peg Entwistle, Willie Dixon, Olivia de Havilland, Moustapha Akkad, Leslie Caron, Jamie Farr (b. Jameel Joseph Farah), Jean Marsh, Sydney Pollack, Claude Berri, Karen Black (b. Karen Blanche Ziegler), Twyla Tharp, Geneviève Bujold, Debbie Harry, Fred Schneider, Dan Aykroyd, Diana Frances Spencer Princess of Wales, Pamela Anderson, Missy Elliott, Julianne Nicholson, Claire Forlani, Liv Tyler(Rundgren).

Bon voyage!

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense

Given that the band Talking Heads first opened for the Ramones at CBGB’s in 1976 and that tomorrow is David Byrne’s 54th birthday, it seems fitting to do a brief overview of their arc.

Eclectic background and diversity combined with an interest in visual art and music set within an explosive punk milieu gave Talking Heads a razor-sharp edge when they formed in the mid-1970s. Scottish-born Byrne had a natural global outlook first harnessed by the band and later articulated in numerous independent projects during and after the band’s official disbandment in 1991. Tina (Martina Michéle) Weymouth (11/22/50), half-French, brought an equally cosmopolitan outlook to the band. With Chris Frantz (5/8/51) on drums and former Modern Lovers’ player Jerry Harrison on guitars and keyboards, Talking Heads created a winning combination as a band and in spinoff collaborations. They produced five killer albums that can for the sake of brevity be divided into two periods – early stripped down “falsetto punk” and darker, more interesting and complex “world music.” Talking Heads: 77 and More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) made up the first period, showcasing the creepy “Psycho Killer,” the droll “Don’t Worry About the Government,” “No Compassion,” “Take Me to the River,” and “The Big Country.” Starting in 1978, Brian Eno (5/15/48) helped them in a major way to come to full fruition as a band, adding layers of complexity that are already evident in the richer sounds of the second album.

Eno’s collaboration becomes even more evident in the brilliantly creative world music period. I highly recommend these albums to anyone unfamilar with the Talking Heads catalog: Fear of Music, Remain in Light, and Speaking in Tongues. Fear (1979) includes the campy, awesome “Life During Wartime” and the gentler “Heaven.” My personal favorite is Remain in Light (1980), which besides the highly accessible “Once in a Lifetime” is a seamless, wonderful album. Speaking in Tongues (1983) showcases “Burning Down the House,” among other mind-sticking tracks.

As a band, Talking Heads crested with the excellent film Stop Making Sense (1984), which captures their mesmerizing in-concert combination of music and visual style. I was lucky enough to see them on this last major tour and was blown away by their performance style. I also adored their playful projections of random words and phrases a la William Burroughs and Brion Gysin’s cut-up method.

Their spinoff projects resulted in some gems, as well, specifically the non-Byrne Tom Tom Club, a danceable fun group that produced such memorable and well-sampled tracks as “Genius of Love.” Tom Tom Club was the brainchild of Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, who incidentally married each other back in 1977 and whose children Egan and Robin are musicians, too. Harrison and Eno went on to produce any number of highly acclaimed albums with other bands. Byrne and Eno put togther the really cool My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), a series of rhythmic tracks built around radio samples of people babbling in mystical or just plain bizarre altered states. I can’t wait to hear the just-released extended CD version, having played the original nearly into oblivion. The Catherine Wheel (1981), the musical part of David Byrne’s collaboration with Twyla Tharp, is also interesting.

All of the members of Talking Heads -- mercifully still alive and kicking -- keep creating interesting art of all kinds.

Finally, Brian Eno’s full name is wild: Brian Peter George St. Jean le Baptiste de la Salle Eno. Wow!

Viva Talking Heads!