The Catherine Wheel

A dance project destined for Broadway, with choreography by Twyla Tharp, music by David Byrne, sets and costumes by Santo Loquasto, and lighting by Jennifer Tipton. Premiered 22 Sept. 1981, by the Twyla Tharp Dance Company, at the Winter Garden Theater, New York. Described by Tharp, in her autobiography When Push Comes to Shove, as ‘a full-length spectacle of the disintegration of family—prototypes borrowed from When We Were Very Young—commented on by a chorus. A shadow play portrayed a pineapple—the traditional symbol of housewarming—turning into a nuclear bomb. Mom and Pop battled onstage, Daughter was sold into slavery, and the chorus leader was transformed from a goddess of innocence and sensuality into a hag surrounded by insane dancers, incapable of controlling their own bodies.’ Although it was a collaboration between one of the leading choreographers in the US and one of the top names in the world of pop music—David Byrne of the Talking Heads rock group—the work was not a financial success and it closed after a short Broadway run. However, the energetically charged final part, The Golden Section, survived as a one—act ballet in its own right and has been performed by Tharp's company and Rambert Dance Company. Tharp adapted the entire ballet for television in 1983.