Nine Sinatra Songs

For Rhoda and Jerry Oster – Twyla Tharp

With appreciation to Sinatra Enterprises and The Frank Sinatra Foundation

Choreographed in 1982, Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs has become a popular classic, presenting its view of 1950’s social dancing through the nostalgic but sharpened eyes of the 1980s. Oscar de la Renta’s dresses and tuxedos flash with a similar double edge of past and present eras. Choreographing to classic Sinatra—including “One for My Baby,” “Strangers in the Night,” and “My Way”—Tharp upscales traditional ballroom dancing with the active participation from both dance partners in styles ranging from tango to flamenco to exhibition disco.

Notes compiled by Doug Fullington.

Frank Sinatra
Music

Singer and actor Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) rose to fame singing big band numbers. In the 1940s and 1950s, he had a dazzling array of hit songs and albums and appeared in dozens of films, winning a supporting actor Oscar for his role in From Here to Eternity. He left behind a massive catalog of work that includes iconic tunes like “Strangers in the Night,” “My Way,” and “New York, New York.” 

Shelley Washington
Stager

Shelley Washington studied with Twyla Tharp at Wolftrap Academy, American University, prior to being invited to join Twyla Tharp Dance Company in 1975. She previously danced as a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy, Ms. Washington furthered her training at the Juilliard School. She performed in the 1977 film Hair and served as dance captain for the 1985 Broadway production of Singing in the Rain. In 1987, she was honored with a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie). 

From 1988 to 1992, Ms. Washington worked with American Ballet Theatre as soloist and rehearsal director in association with Ms. Tharp. In 1993, she was rehearsal director for Ms. Tharp’s Cutting Up tour, starring Ms. Tharp and Mikhail Baryshnikov, Twyla Tharp and Dancers’ City Center season in New York, and Tharp Dances’ international tour. Ms. Washington continues to work with Ms. Tharp as rehearsal director by setting, staging, and directing Ms. Tharp’s ballets for various companies, including Boston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance, Martha Graham Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre, Australian Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Ballet Rambert, The Royal Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Zurich Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, Ballet British Columbia, Ballet Florida and the Royal Danish Ballet. 

In addition, Ms. Washington spent the summer of 1999 working with Trevor Nunn’s company, Royal National Theater, as movement director and choreographer for A Darker Face of the Earth, which opened at the Cottlesloe Theatre in London. 

Santo Loquasto
Scenic Designer

Santo Loquasto is a designer for dance, theater, and film. Twyla Tharp’s Push Comes to Shove marked the beginning of a long-term relationship with American Ballet Theatre and Tharp. He also collaborated with choreographers Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kenneth MacMillan, Agnes de Mille, James Kudelka, and Mark Morris. As a designer for the Paul Taylor Dance Company, he has designed a total of 49 pieces. 

In 1989, Mr. Loquasto won both the Tony and the Drama Desk awards for his set design of the New York Shakespeare Festival’s Cafe Crown, and, in 1990, he again won both the Tony and the Drama Desk awards for his costume design for Grand Hotel. He received his first Tony in 1977 for costume designs for The Cherry Orchard. For his other work in theater, he has received an Obie, the Joseph Maharam Award, both Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desks awards, and a total of 17 Tony nominations. For film, Mr. Loquasto has received Academy Award nominations for production design for Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway and Radio Days, and for costume design for Allen’s Zelig. Other film credits include Desperately Seeking Susan, Big, and Blue Jasmine.  

Jennifer Tipton
Lighting Designer

Lighting designer Jennifer Tipton was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended Cornell University. After graduation, she came to New York to study dance, and her interest in lighting began with a course in the subject at the American Dance Festival at Connecticut College. She has been awarded two Bessies and a Laurence Olivier Award for lighting dance; her work in that field includes pieces choreographed by Mikhail Baryshnikov, Jiri Kylian, Dana Reitz, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, and Twyla Tharp, among many others. In 1991, she received a Dance Magazine Award and has been a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Theater Program Distinguished Artist Award and a grant in the National Theatre Artist Residency Program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Her theater work has garnered a Joseph Jefferson Award, a Kudo, a Drama-Logue Award, two American Theatre Wing Awards, an Obie, two Drama Desk Awards, and two Tonys for The Cherry Orchard and Jerome Robbins’ Broadway. She was the recipient of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2001 and the Jerome Robbins Prize in 2003. In 2008, she became a United States Artist “Gracie” Fellow and a MacArthur Fellow. Ms. Tipton is on the faculty at the Yale University School of Drama.