Twyla Tharp, the uber-influential and popular New York City choreographer who’s celebrating her company’s 60th anniversary this year with a national tour, brings a pair of West Coast premieres to Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall Feb. 7–9, presented by Cal Performances. Other California dates on the schedule include the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara on Feb. 11, The Conrad in San Diego on Feb. 13, Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa Feb. 15–16, and The Soraya in Northridge Feb. 22–23.
Both of the Tharp dances being staged are, as it happens, supremely musical. Diabelli (1998) is set to Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, which will be performed live by pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev. And then there’s SLACKTIDE (2025), featuring new arrangements of Philip Glass’s ballet music Aguas de Amazonia, which will be performed at certain tour stops by Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion (TCP) and flutist Constance Volk, whose album featuring the same work dropped in January.
“This is our first time working with Twyla,” said Peter Martin, who, along with Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, and David Skidmore, comprises TCP. “But we have a pretty long history with the Glass piece. We’d played a lot of his music for the better part of 10 years in various arrangements, and Twyla had seen a performance of ours.
“About two years ago,” Martin recalled, “when we first dreamed of this project, we [began] workshopping new material, sending recordings to Twyla, and were building some new instruments. It’s been a collaborative process, and it’s satisfying working with her. She has so much energy and a focused vision. She thinks and speaks in large artistic brushstrokes, and it’s really inspiring when we get to interact with her.”
Tharp founded Twyla Tharp Dance in New York City in 1965 and since then, in addition to creating works for her company, has choreographed for American Ballet Theatre and The Joffrey Ballet, also earning Tony Awards for directing and choreographing the 2002 Broadway show Movin’ Out. Her first collaboration with Glass, The Upper Room, dates back nearly 40 years, and the first move in the 30-minute SLACKTIDE is taken from the final move in that earlier work.
Like the musicians of the Brazilian instrumental group Uakti, who arranged and performed Aguas de Amazonia in its original recording, TCP made several of its own instruments for the work. Explained Martin, “Philip wrote the music for that group in the 1990s, [and] they released the album in 1999. The group no longer exists. The music and instruments were unique — percussion and strings that were mostly handmade.
“Our instrumentation is standard — synthesizer, organ, glass marimba, [with] custom instruments made by [TCP production manager] Colin Campbell,” Martin continued. “There’s a bass keyboard [which is made of] long PVC tubes cut to various lengths that create one chromatic octave [and are] set up like a keyboard and played with paddles. That ends up sounding like a bass guitar.”
Among the other unique instruments the ensemble will play are almglocken — chromatically tuned cowbells from Switzerland that Martin says one would find “in the Swiss Alps, around the necks of cattle.” There will also be a sun drum (or chromatically tuned log drum) and a wooden slat keyboard, which consists of lengths of red oak cut to various pitches.
“In this context,” added Martin, “the cowbells aren’t used percussively to keep a beat. They’re used melodically. When my bandmate Rob plays them, it’s a beautiful haunting melody.
“What I love most about this repertory [is that while] it can be rhythmically active, for the most part all these melodies create a lovely, lyrical sound world. And in addition to these awesome percussion instruments, the flute player, Constance Volk, is fantastic and has been a big part of getting the arrangements together. There’s also a bit of improvisation involved on the flute.”
Although this setup would certainly be a visual treat as well as an aural one, TCP and Volk will unfortunately be in the pit for the Berkeley performances. “But,” Martin points out, “depending on where the audience is sitting, they’ll have a good look at us. And since we’ll be set up at the top of the show, you can take a gander in the pit. It’s a feast for the eyes, looking at all these instruments.”
A “slack tide” refers to the short period in a body of tidal water when there’s no movement either way in the tidal stream. “It can last a few minutes,” said Martin, “or up to 30 or 40 minutes when the water doesn’t move at all. In Twyla’s mind, time sort of stops, and there’s one really key moment where that resonates strongly. It’s very dramatic, [and] we were over the moon when we got to see all of the piece at the first dress rehearsal.”
TCP is known for interpretations of works by John Cage and Steve Reich, as well as for its commissioning program. The group won a Grammy Award in 2017 for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for its recording of Steve Reich’s works for percussion.
“Percussion is one of the oldest instruments in the world,” Martin said. “But our type of ensemble is a new, 20th-century invention and is becoming more popular. It’s a big moment for our style of music.”