Twyla Tharp

Twyla Tharp appears in the diary as both a prominent figure in New York’s performance world and a guest willing to question her own standing in it. In a brief account of her work, she is the focus of a Hair benefit; at a later party, she describes her film career as finished while returning, after drinks, to stories about the Judson dancers she had initially seemed reluctant to claim.

Public appearances and social setting

John Fairchild Jr. invited the diarist to a Hair benefit at the Brooklyn Academy, where Twyla Tharp was the event’s featured performer. The evening brought together a large social circle: Fairchild arrived with Henry Post, William Pitt, Marita, and Teri Garr, and Mike Nichols greeted the diarist. Tharp’s presence at the benefit places her within a network where artistic events and celebrity gatherings overlapped.

At a separate party for Alexis Smith at Dukes, held before The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas went on the road, the diarist sat between Mrs. Long and Tharp. Tharp had a younger boyfriend whom she had been living with for years. The diary records the relationship as an established part of her personal life, without elaborating on it.

Career doubts and disagreement

During the party conversation, Tharp described herself as a has-been and said her movie career was over. She blamed Lester Persky and Hair, arguing that the production had not used enough of her dancing. The diarist privately rejected that assessment, doubting that the work could have made greater use of Tharp’s dancing. The exchange sets Tharp’s bleak account of her prospects against the diarist’s more skeptical view of her self-criticism.

The Judson dancers and guarded recollection

Tharp also tried to distance herself from the Judson dancers, the artists associated with Judson Church in Greenwich Village during the 1960s. When the diarist brought up individual dancers, Tharp would not readily acknowledge knowing them, offering instead a vague account of having been in the basement. After she had had a few drinks, however, she began telling stories about the dancers she had earlier seemed to disavow. The diary’s passage breaks off as that recollection begins, leaving the shift in her manner visible but its details unrecorded.