MEDIATHEK

An evening-long collaborative work between Tharp and David Byrne (of The Talking Heads), The Catherine Wheel is a continuous piece of dance/theater that makes its way toward a fireworklike finale [see: The Golden Section] through episodes presenting the disintegration of the nuclear family, while ruminating on the detonation of nuclear weapons. The dance ensemble becomes a cast of specifically defined characters: The Leader and The Chorus; The Mother; The Father; The Sister; The Brother; The Maid; The Pet; and The Poet. A pineapple prop plays a part as its natural self and as its symbolic self, as a nickname for explosive devices. The seventeen dance sections, each with its own appropriate title, mimetic ingredients, and choreographic textures ("Disrupting the Peace," "Equilibrium Restored," for example) work alongside Byrne's twenty-three musical selections ("His Wife Refused," "Dense Beasts," for example). Structurally the dance momentum evolves classically: development, climax, denouement and apotheosis. Enacted family squabbles, domestic scenes and poetic intrigue mesh into and out of dance sequences that eventually segue into the work's "pure dance" resolution, Tharp's "Golden Section" to Byrne's "Five Golden Sections," "What a Day That Was," "Big Blue Plymouth," and "Light Bath." This culminating, celebrational number is flushed with rushing and released energy that stands in stark contrast to the "heavier" mood, emotionally, physically, and scenically, that gives way to it. (www.twylatharp.org) CH