THE PERFORMING ARTS

Two musical legends keep dancers on their toes

The choreography of Twyla Tharp and the music of Elvis Costello come together for the Miami City Ballet in a premiere that moves artistic boundaries.

BY JORDAN LEVIN

jlevin@MiamiHerald.com

Legendary choreographer Twyla Tharp has plenty to do on a recent afternoon: costumes to adjust, rehearsals to run for the much anticipated world premiere of her latest creation, Nightspot. But as soon as a photo shoot of the rehearsal gets going, she can't help it. Give Tharp an opportunity to play, and she will.

As the six dancers from Miami City Ballet slide and spiral and shimmy, Tharp gets in there with them, flirting, posing and subverting her own steps, while the dancers laugh and play along -- intent but happily unintimidated by the world-famous choreographer who has challenged them for a new piece that's making a buzz far beyond Miami.

When Nightspot makes its debut Friday at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, it will be a major cultural event. Not only is it a creation by Tharp -- whose many credits include Movin' Out, the hit Broadway dance musical set to songs by Billy Joel -- but it has a new score by pop-music icon Elvis Costello and costumes by famed designer Issac Mizrahi.

But for Tharp, the primary motivation behind creating a new piece in Miami, rather than in a cultural capital more used to unveiling significant new dance productions, was the chance to work with Miami City Ballet, which commissioned Nightspot and brought the artists together. For Tharp, it was also a way to take her constant quest to create something new to a different environment.

''That was great,'' Tharp, sitting in a meeting room upstairs at MCB's Miami Beach studios, says of the chance to create something with Costello, someone she's admired for years. But she says that working with MCB artistic director Edward Villella and his dancers ``would have been reason enough. Somebody who does as good a job as he has done here and created such a wonderful instrument, it's very seductive to come play on it.''

And to play on it here. ''What's different here -- among other things -- is Miami,'' Tharp says. ``It's an opportunity for me to learn, to ask some different questions. It's a new launching point. It's in my imagination, this Miami. It's not in the real world.''

Nightspot brings together for the first time these two giants in their fields: Tharp, 66, who has conquered modern dance, ballet, Hollywood and Broadway; and Costello, 53, who has gone from punk to songwriting icon, ranging into rock, jazz, classical, blues, swing and more. Both are pioneers with a history of eclipsing barriers between classical and popular; relentlessly curious and rigorous, they continually expand the possibilities of their art forms. It could be a potent partnership.

That they've come together in South Florida is another validation, not only of MCB, but of Miami's growth into a place with the talent, facilities, energy and chutzpah to make something like this happen.

''It's been an incredible experience,'' says Costello, who arrived Monday for final rehearsals with the musicians. ``There's a sense of an event about the occasion, which I'm looking forward to. I like things to be rare.''

It is not just rare for Miami.

''Any new piece by Twyla Tharp is a major event in the dance world,'' says Arlene Shuler, president and chief executive officer of the storied dance venue New York City Center, who plans to come to Miami to see Nightspot. ``And having a score by Elvis Costello certainly gives it added interest.''

That's true in large part because of what Tharp -- especially in collaboration with Costello -- brings to the appeal of dance in general, Shuler says.

''A choreographer of the stature and talent of Twyla Tharp creating work for ballet companies is very important to keep the creative energy flowing,'' Shuler says. ``It gets people excited and hopefully will bring in younger people. We need that for the future of the art form.''

Villella hopes Nightspot will extend the company's audience and reputation. ''With these international people, we are hoping we will attract an audience that would not necessarily go to a ballet but might go to something like this,'' Villella says. ``It's a major event in our world.''

Nightspot got its start in March 2005 when MCB Executive Director Pamela Gardiner, an ardent Costello fan, arranged to visit the singer backstage after a concert at the Jackie Gleason Theater. Gardiner had taken note when in 2000 Costello composed Il Sogno, a score for the Italian ballet troupe Alterballetto. She hoped he would do something for MCB.

After an enthusiastic two-hour conversation about Balanchine and Stravinsky, Villella and ballet, Gardiner invited Costello to visit MCB's studio the next morning. At first the singer said no -- but at 3 a.m. he sent an e-mail saying he had changed his mind. He showed up in his tour bus the next morning, and was so bowled over watching the dancers in their daily class that the planned half-hour visit lasted much longer.

''It would kill most horses -- and that's just what they do to loosen up,'' Costello says of the dancers' routine. ``The dynamism and dedication wasn't something I'd experienced before.''

Even though both Costello and Tharp were interested, bringing them together, with their complex schedules planned years in advance, was a challenge. They didn't meet until May 2006, in Tharp's office and apartment in New York. Both are formidably intelligent and intense, and sparks flew.

''She's not shy of an opinion, and then again, neither am I,'' Costello says. ``In that, we got along fine.''

''He is obviously a great collaborator,'' Tharp says. ``He is very quick, efficient, imaginative, creative -- all good things.''

Not so good: Between touring and other projects, Costello couldn't come to rehearsals. ''It's been an MP3 relationship,'' Tharp says. They sent recordings back and forth, Tharp often working with a hodgepodge of Costello's songs while she waited for updates to the score.

Although Costello has written only once for ballet, and never for a choreographer of Tharp's caliber, he was undeterred.

''A lot of the music I've done was written for dance, but for a different kind of dance,'' he says. ``We're living in a time where this perceived ownership and elitism of certain types of music has been eroded by people's experience and desire to work together. And that's the way it should be.''

He has created a score for a 35-piece orchestra in the pit and a nine-piece dance band onstage, which includes a horn section and a guitarist who also plays Cuban tres. There'll be fleeting references to his other songs, and some Latin flavor -- although Costello said he's not trying to reproduce rumba or salsa, just seeking something new.

Tharp is just as passionate about the possibilities of popular music. She used Petulia Clark's Downtown for her first concert in 1965, and set the Joffrey Ballet dancing to the Beach Boys for 1973's Deuce Coupe, which broke down the barriers between ballet and modern dance and catapulted her to stardom.

A nightclub and some kind of Latinidad are part of Nightspot, but Tharp will not reveal any details, saying she wants audiences and critics to make up their own minds.

For MCB's dancers, working with Tharp was a mind-opening experience. Although four of her dances are in MCB's repertoire, creating something from scratch with her was very different from their routine of learning preset sequences of familiar ballet steps. Instead, Tharp had them follow her as she improvised to constantly changing music -- rock, tango, Costello, the Gypsy Kings.

''At the beginning, we were all really intimidated,'' says Callie Manning, an MCB soloist enjoying her most important role as a lead in Nightspot. ''We were afraid we'd do something wrong.'' Instead, they found Tharp's intensity and creativity inspiring. ''She's always excited,'' Manning says. For Tharp, it's the first time since she worked with the Joffrey Ballet that she has made an original work for a troupe other than huge world-renowned companies like American Ballet Theater, New York City Ballet and England's Royal Ballet. But like the division between pop and classical, categories like regional and world class no longer make sense to Tharp. She's just interested in the dancers and the moment that inspire her.

''The talent pool is becoming interchangeable,'' she says. ``It's all up for grabs. Whoever's got the energy and heart and passion and the determination to go for it, go for it.''