Twyla Tharp Dance Celebrates 60 Years with a US Tour

Revolutionary choreographer Twyla Tharp celebrates her 60th year as a dance maker with a 13-week U.S. tour and a new, boundary-pushing program.

The Diamond Jubilee celebration began in 2024 with the premiere of two new works at The Joyce Theater in New York City in February, along with a lively revival of Ocean’s Motion (1975). The company later took this program on a Texas tour in September.

The winter program on this tour features Tharp’s Olivier-nominated Diabelli, set to Beethoven’s monumental Diabelli Variations, with a live piano performance by Vladimir Rumyantsev. Diabelli challenges performers to embody Beethoven’s demanding piano work, intertwining the music with movement to create a truly unique dance experience. The tour will also showcase the highly anticipated premiere of SLACKTIDE, marking the first collaboration between Tharp and Philip Glass since their 1986 work In The Upper Room. The reimagining of Glass’ Aguas da Amazonia has been arranged and recorded by Third Coast Percussion in collaboration with Tharp. Third Coast Percussion will perform live at select tour stops on a collection of custom-designed percussion instruments, joined by Constance Volk on flute.

Unpredictable and dynamic, Tharp’s creations solidify her place as one of the great artists of our time. “The choreographer Twyla Tharp has been a classicist, a modernist, a postmodernist — often at the same time — and maybe now and then a feminist and a Romantic, too. She also has a strong streak of the clown: tough, solemn-deadpan, with crazy timing, making a joke of how impossible things can be.” The New York Times

2025 Performance Dates 

January 26* Minneapolis, MN Northrop Memorial Auditorium

January 29* Iowa City, IA Hancher Auditorium

February 1-2* Detroit, MI  Detroit Opera House

February 7-9* Berkeley, CA Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall

February 11* Santa Barbara, CA UCSB Arts & Lectures, Granada Theatre

February 13* La Jolla, CA La Jolla Music Society, Balboa Theatre

February 15-16* Costa Mesa, CA Segerstrom Center for the Arts

February 18 Palm Desert, CA McCallum Theatre

February 22-23 Northridge, CA The Soraya

February 25-26 Santa Fe, NM Lensic Performing Arts Center

March 1-2 Miami, FL The Moss Center

March 4 Sarasota, FL Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall

March 6 Tallahassee, FL Opening Nights at FSU, Ruby Diamond Concert Hall

March 8 Cleveland, OH DANCECleveland, Keybank State Theater

March 12-16* New York, NY New York City Center

March 26-29* Washington, DC John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

April 5* Richmond, VA Modlin Center for the Arts

April 10-12* Chicago, IL Harris Theater

April 15 Madison, WI Overture Center

April 17 Princeton, NJ McCarter Theatre Center

April 19 Pittsburgh, PA Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Byham Theater

*With Third Coast Percussion and Constance Volk, Flute

Ensemble
Renan Cerdeiro, Angela Falk, Zachary Gonder, Oliver Greene-Cramer, Kyle Halford, Daisy Jacobson, Miriam Gittens, Nicole Ashley Morris, Marzia Memoli, Alexander Peters, Molly Rumble, Reed Tankersley

Funding Credits
Diabelli was commissioned by The Cité de la Musique (Paris); The Barbican Center (London); University of Iowa, Hancher Auditorium (Iowa City)

SLACKTIDE was commissioned by New York City Center (New York), The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), UC Santa Barbara, Arts & Lectures (Santa Barbara).

This arrangement by Third Coast Percussion of Aguas da Amazonia by Philip Glass was commissioned with support from Modlin Center for the Arts, University of Richmond, the Zell Family Foundation, the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation, the Julian Family Foundation, and Steph and Daniel Heffner.

Major support for the Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation is provided by Jay Franke and David Herro.

Funding for the 60th Tour made possible by Jody and John Arnhold, Valerie and Chuck Diker, Peter and Sarah Finn, Sarah Hoover, Bill Miller, James Nederlander Jr., Patsy and Jeff Tarr, Stephen and Cathy Weinroth, and Vicente Wolf.