Back in 1986, on an unusually cold day in August, Twyla Tharp unveiled a new and then untitled work at the Ravinia Festival.
Set to pulsating music by Philip Glass, decorated with flowing red, white and gray costuming, what would eventually be called “In the Upper Room” took your breath away at that first public performance. On the heels of her disastrous Broadway stint with “Singin’ in the Rain,” Tharp bounced back with something that blended her own revolutionary movement with classical form. The work captured the essence of minimalism while at the same time exploding with life, power, majesty, struggle and triumph, all in a rich landscape of bouncing aerobics and silky arabesques.
It was as if Tharp had found a way to put everything she knew and loved into a single, sprawling, deceptively light-footed endeavor.
Despite all the Tharp works before and since, “Upper Room” (taped for a “Dance in America” installment of “Great Performances,” to air at 9 p.m. Wednesday on WTTW-Ch. 11) remains her masterpiece, as airy as a souffle, as soulful as Greek tragedy. Preserving such inspiration on video is a tricky business. While no better way exists to enable millions who haven’t seen “Upper Room” to taste of its genius, the live character of dance confounds the TV camera in innumerable ways. This is especially true for the work of such great choreographers as Tharp, who know exactly how to shape and present their work to maximize the living quality of dancers.
“Upper Room” is particularly life-bound. You need to be in the same room with these people to appreciate the way Tharp weaves a spell so graceful and carefree that extraordinary effort is rendered almost invisible. Almost is the key word, however–as the piece’s drive and determination become inexorable, the steadfast work of the dancers begins to peek out from behind their flawless, elastic moves. They emerge as emblems of endurance, and “Upper Room” is about that paradox in dance and life–of unavoidable pain and struggle in an undying pursuit of beauty.
Even the sly evolution in the costuming is an ironic comment on human nature. The dancers start in blousy, angelic white that evolves into crimson and finally, as they shed bits of clothing, into partial nudity. What begins in near heavenly chambers of an upper room (Tharp explains on the video that the title comes from a hymn) ends in a triumph of the flesh. For the dancer, and maybe mankind, the spirit is found in muscle, sinew, sweat, blood and tears.
Video technology can’t quite convey all this–the camera maintains a clinical distance that never lets Tharp’s shield of infallibility become transparent. The exhilarating triumph is therefore left more to the imagination of the viewer.
Director Derek Bailey films from far enough away that the unfortunate crops of the dancers’ feet that plagued some of the earlier “Dance in America” efforts are avoided. And the structural complexity and audacious movement variety of “Upper Room” make for fascinating technical study–be sure to tape and watch this one again. Only Jamie Bishton survives from the original cast, alas, but the pick-up company is exceptional–Tharp always chooses the best dancers, and they become better in the process of working with her.
Glass’ inimitable score underlies the dancing with lean instrumentation, chord progression and one mournful soprano–a human crying out and imposing form on the darkness, just as the dancers emerge from the gloomy, misty regions at the rear of the stage to create, as if from nowhere, their sublimely magical movement.
