Waiting at the Station

James F. Ingalls studied stage management at Yale School of Drama, and went on to work as a stage manager for Yale Repertory Theatre and the Twyla Tharp Dance Company, before turning to lighting design for opera, theater, and dance. He was the Resident Lighting Designer for the American Repertory Theater from 1981-1984 and has worked frequently with theater director Peter Sellars. Mr. Ingalls work for dance companies includes designs for American Ballet Theatre, Dutch National Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Mark Morris Dance Group, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Paris Opera Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, PNB, and San Francisco Ballet, among others. He collaborates frequently with the Wooden Floor Dancers in Santa Ana, California. Mr. Ingalls is the recipient of several Drama-Logue Awards, the Obie for sustained excellence in lighting design, and a National Theater Artist Residency Grant.

Kiyon Ross has devoted his career to ballet—as a dancer, choreographer, stager, faculty member, and administrator. He started his training at the Baltimore School of the Arts and finished at PNB School, joining the Company in 2001 and retiring as a Soloist in 2015. Kiyon has choreographed works for PNB, PNB School, New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute, and Spectrum Dance Theater, and was the resident choreographer at Ballet Arkansas from 2015-2018. Kiyon is the Associate Artistic Director at PNB.

Santo Loquasto is a Tony and Drama Desk award winning 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. He also collaborated with choreographers Jerome Robbins, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Paul Taylor, Agnes de Mille, James Kudelka, and Mark Morris. 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 and Big.

Since her graduation from Barnard College in 1963, Twyla Tharp has choreographed more than one hundred twenty-five dances, five Hollywood movies, directed and choreographed two Broadway shows, written two books and received one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, seventeen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President’s Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts and numerous grants including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In 1965 Ms. Tharp began the dance company Twyla Tharp Dance for which she made 80 pieces including Nine Sinatra Songs and In the Upper Room. In 1988 Twyla Tharp Dance merged with American Ballet Theatre where Ms. Tharp created more than a dozen works. Since that time Ms. Tharp has choreographed dances for many companies including: The Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, New York City Ballet, The Boston Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance and The Martha Graham Dance Company.

In 1991 Ms. Tharp regrouped her company Twyla Tharp Dance and created a program with Mikhail Baryshnikov called Cutting Up, which went on to become one of contemporary dance’s most successful tours, appearing in twenty eight cities over a two month period. Since 1999 Twyla Tharp Dance and has been touring internationally to critical acclaim.

Ms. Tharp’s work first went to Broadway in 1980 with When We Were Very Young, followed in 1981 by her collaboration with David Byrne on The Catherine Wheel at the Winter Garden; and her 1985 staging of Singin’ in the Rain, which played at the Gershwin for three hundred sixty seven performances, followed by an extensive national tour. In 2002, Ms. Tharp and Billy Joel’s award-winning dance musical Movin’ Out premiered on Broadway, and a national tour opened in January 2004. Both companies are still playing. The recipient of a 2003 Tony Award for Movin’ Out, Ms. Tharp was also honored with the 2003 Astaire Award; the Drama League Award for Sustained Achievement in Musical Theater; and both the Drama Desk Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Choreography.

In film Ms. Tharp has collaborated with director Milos Forman on Hair (1978), Ragtime (1980), and Amadeus (1984); with Taylor Hackford on White Nights (1985); and with James Brooks on I’ll Do Anything (1994).

Her television credits include choreographing Sue’s Leg for the inaugural episode of PBS’ Dance in America, co-producing and directing Making Television Dance, which won the Chicago International Film Festival Award; and directing The Catherine Wheel for BBC Television. Ms. Tharp co-directed the television special Baryshnikov by Tharp, which won two Emmy Awards as well as the Director’s Guild of America Award for Outstanding Director Achievement.

Ms. Tharp wrote her first book in 1992, her autobiography Push Comes to Shove. Her second book, The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life was published in October 2003.

Ms. Tharp continues to create works and lecture around the world.

Source: https://www.twylatharp.org/