♪♪ -Tonight on "PBS Arts Talk"... -I think I'm good.

-Okay.

Alright.

-[ Gasps ] Twyla!

Ohhh!

-...legendary dancer, and choreographer, Twyla Tharp.

-Okay, what are we doing here?

-[ Laughs ] Twyla.

-She sits down with tonight's host, groundbreaking ballerina Misty Copeland... -What was it that made you feel you could do it?

-...on this edition of "PBS Arts Talk."

♪♪ -How have you been?

-Okay.

How have you been?

-Yeah.

Busy.

-Good.

-Doing a million things.

Not enough dance.

-Yeah, that's what it is, doll.

-But I want you to be a part of my integration back into the studio.

-Well, when are you ready to start?

-Okay, [ Laughing ] I'll let you know when I'm ready.

I just want to start, I guess -- how do you prepare for your day as a dancer and choreographer?

-Well, it depends on the day, as you well know.

-What was today like?

-Well, not every day has to do with chore-eography, as I say, right?

The writing of chores, chore-eography.

It is sometimes a day that has to do with planning phone calls to deal with, you know, agents, to deal with all that kind of thing.

Nonetheless, first thing every day -- body, right?

Bike, stretch, abs.

Some, you know, bastardized yoga kind of stuff, some aerobics.

A really bad barre, really bad.

-[ Laughs ] -But nonetheless, I mean, it's the proper progression.

-You're doing it.

-Yeah.

-I want to talk about your creative process.

What inspires you?

-Love.

-Love.

-I have to love the dancer.

-Ah!

-Then it's no problem.

That's it.

-I love it.

I mean, love of the dancer.

Love of music?

-Well, music is an ongoing companion.

So are books, so are paintings, so are people walking in the street.

I mean, we're curious, right?

So, if one wants to be "creative," which is to say move outside the box, you got to have a box to get out of.

So, you need to know something about the tradition and the history and the reality and the purpose of that thing that you're practicing, whether it's potting or making a dance or writing a book.

-We're going to start out by showing a video clip... -Ooh!

-"Eight Jelly Rolls."

-Oh, yeah, yeah.

Well, I was very sick for this.

You'll see.

I almost threw up, right there.

-What?!

-Right.

[ Whimsical jazz plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ Every great dancer offers a different set of possibilities, but I started with what I had to maximize, you know, the challenge -- could I get higher, could I get lower?

That, actually, there are moments where it's very far forward, which is what makes you feel like it's going to topple because I was really close to toppling, as like how close can you get without falling?

♪♪ ♪♪ -What was it that made you feel you could do it?

-Curiosity.

Also, I had a singular upbringing.

I had a mother who was determined I could do something in this lifetime.

So, I had lots and lots of preparation, lots of dancing lessons, of all kinds so that -- I had a body that was hungry and so it's like, "Okay, higher relevé.

Okay, longer tendu.

Okay, more, more, more."

That was the thing.

And, on occasion, less, less, less.

-What was your life like, I mean, with your mother?

I mean, it wasn't New York City.

-No, no, no, no.

I worked in the drive-in.

My parents owned a drive-in.

I worked in the drive-in from the time I was eight until I went to college.

I grew up in a car, basically, at the drive-in.

So, my mother transported me from one lesson to another lesson and I had all these possibilities.

Came to New York, started dancing professionally.

Decided, "Whoops!

I don't like this dance."

Made trouble, even.

Not too much, just a little, not a lot.

And left and realized that, if I was going to do dance, I was going to have to make the dances because nobody else could put up with me.

Therefore, I started.

I did it because I wanted to dance.

-Let's talk about "Deuce Coupe."

-Okay.

-First performed in 1973 with the Joffrey Ballet, the first crossover ballet.

[ Rock plays ] When you're creating a work like "Deuce Coupe," you have such drastically different styles of movement and you're bringing them together.

How does that process happen, especially to music by the Beach Boys?

-Well, that was a little far-fetched, but, anyway.

[ Laughs ] Okay, my answer, always, about how can you think about putting classical ballet in tandem with popular social dancing, which is what "Deuce Coupe" was, that happens because I believe in diversity.

I also believe in inclusivity.

I believe that the human body is all human bodies, end of story.

What can it do?

They operate differently, you know.

Some guys are tall, some are short, some got a développé, some got a beat.

This is good -- he'll do beat; he'll do développé.

And you make each one of the dancers to their max, where they are.

You don't ask them to do what they don't do.

You ask them to do what they do do.

-Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

-And that is the way that you make for a group that can work the different elements that seem to be like this, but they actually become like this.

Because it's really, Misty, called respect.

-Yeah.

-Right?

-So, the classical dancers, yes, we had a hard time of it.

Bob Joffrey, for whom "Deuce Coupe" was made, was an extraordinary director.

I mean, he was the first person who ever hired me.

I'd never had a paying job before Joffrey hired us and we'd been working for like '65 'til '7-- almost seven years.

-Unbelievable.

-When he asked us to come in, it was, essentially, these street rebels coming into a classical ballet company and classical ballet company did not like it.

-I can imagine.

-They were not happy because this was not dance.

-Hm!

-And I said, "Never mind, this is jumping, so, you jump higher than I'm going to, now, let's go."

-[ Laughs ] -And that's how you do it.

You make a common denominator that everybody can approach in their own way.

-So, you really broke that divide between modern dance and ballet.

-Well, see, I didn't think -- -You don't think?

-Excuse me for interrupting, honey.

I didn't think of it as breaking anything.

I thought of it was adding in.

I thought of it as making things be bigger, not going, "Whack, I don't like you.

You're out," it was like, "Oh, you're good for that.

Let's use that and we'll have some of this."

-I mean, but it was really pushing ballet dancers in a way that, maybe, they hadn't been pushed before.

What was their approach like in taking on your works?

-Well, it was interesting, you know.

Here's how it works.

We didn't work en pointe, the truth be told.

And we didn't have the clear, gorgeous, Vaganova arabesque.

We didn't have that bell curve in the back.

What we did have was we could get into the groove and these guys are going -- [ Campy voice ] Oh, my God!

Did you see that?!

-[ Laughs ] -And we're going, "Yeah!"

And so, we do that, and they do this, and there you go.

-Yeah, and you bring them both together.

Well, eventually, we did bring them all together because, eventually, I got some of those dancers into "Deuce Coupe," then I got some of them into my own company.

And it's always been a ballet route, so, it's not as though we're not using the same alphabet.

They're just spelling some of the words differently, that's all.

-Yeah, I love that.

I mean, you have had such beautiful partnerships, really, with so many incredible dancers and I want to take a look at a clip of Baryshnikov.

-Okay.

You shouldn't have told me.

I would have gone, "Who the hell's that?"

-[ Laughs ] -♪ Get back ♪ ♪ In the race ♪ ♪ That's life ♪ -♪ That's life ♪ -♪ That's life ♪ ♪ And I can't deny it ♪ ♪ Many times ♪ ♪ I thought of cutting out ♪ ♪ But my heart won't buy it ♪ ♪ But if there's nothing shaking ♪ ♪ Come this here July ♪ -What drew you to Baryshnikov?

-Him.

He wanted a piece.

He called.

He said, "Will you make a piece?"

I said, "Well, yeah, I don't know you.

I'll have to see your dance," and so I went to a rehearsal.

He was only doing "Giselle."

All he had performed before he started working on "Push" here was "Giselle."

-I didn't know this.

-Yeah.

And, during this rehearsal, at the end, he did a somersault and ended up at my feet like this... -[ Laughs ] -...and I said, "Well, I'll think about it."

Right?

So I go, "Okay, the guy can sort of clown."

And his thing about him is he's one of a kind.

There will never be another.

♪♪ Our proportions are quite similar, as you might've noticed.

-Yeah.

-So, what I could do, he could do.

I couldn't do everything he could do.

He couldn't do everything I could do.

-[ Laughs ] -And, for example, the opening of "Push"... [ Jazz plays ] ...when he comes sort of sauntering in and he works with the hat and he's off to the side of his legs and it's syncopating, he's behind the beat.

♪♪ He couldn't do that.

-Hm.

-I had to teach him how to do that.

But that's why he wanted to do it, because he really wanted to expand.

He wanted to discover.

-Mm-hmm.

-And you know what else?

He wasn't afraid to look bad.

-That's the key.

-He looked terrible!

-In the beginning of some of that stuff and he didn't care.

-I think that's what can be really difficult for ballet dancers in approaching your movement, modern dance, in general, I think, is that fear of the process of looking bad in order to get, you know, to the place of looking like you when you approach your, you know, your creative process and your choreography.

-Yeah, I don't look at it that way, Misty.

I don't look at people looking like me.

When I work with a dancer who really is a great classical dancer, who really has that kind of technique, they know how good they are.

They don't have to be worried about that.

They want to use it in a different way.

And so, it's always not to look like me.

It's to look more like yourself.

Less like the roles and, for him, because he'd done all the 19th-century ballets, he's done all the men's roles, he'd already done that.

So, it's, "How can he be more himself?"

So, I had to think, "Okay, who is this guy?"

Whenever I work with a dancer I really care about, the material's not just physical, it's emotional.

It's a portrait of "Who is this person?"

He had just come.

He didn't speak English.

I didn't speak Russian.

It was very bizarre.

[ Indistinct conversation ] -Exactly.

-Okay, exactly.

Nonetheless, we managed to get along, basically, and communicate enough so that he could use what he understood really well.

He knew he had that in his pocket, but he also wanted to try the other stuff, like just putting his hands through his hair... Just being a human being, to him, give him the opportunity to just stand like this... [ Laughter ] As well as do, you know, double da bahinka bahomba ba ya ha ha ha!

-[ Laughs ] Speaking of, you know, I guess taking people out of their comfort zone and pushing them, I want to just ask you what your experience is like and the difference in creating for someone wearing tennis shoes and someone wearing pointe shoes.

Like how do you even approach, you know, especially when you're thinking about "The Upper Room"?

♪♪ Both are happening within one piece.

What is it like to choreograph for someone wearing pointe shoes, versus sneakers?

-Well, first of all, it's about engineering.

It's "What will the shoe do?"

-Mm.

-So, a pointe shoe, obviously, the shank is built in such a way that it can support, on a very narrow point, the entire body weight.

And it also is a very hard surface, so that it has got a speed to it.

It also has a clarity of line to it.

Now, something like this, this is not looking like a clean line to me.

-[ Laughs ] -It also is not looking so exceedingly fast.

But what it is, is it can absorb momentum and it can also give you a kind of grounded quality because your base is very different.

Pointe shoe not only has the pointe, but it has that very narrow, nasty little wooden strip of a sole, where you're kind of balanced on a tightrope every time you're standing there, right?

-Preaching to the choir.

Oh, I know.

[ Laughs ] -Yeah, I know you know.

So, I'm just, I'm empathizing, okay?

And I'm going, "Why the hell were you doing that?"

But never mind, because I'll tell you why.

Because what you can do, what you can do, pulling off of that very narrow line to a very high point, to here, is as high as the human body gets.

What I can do, going down here, is just about as low.

So, that is a spectrum of movement, again, that's inclusive.

-Mm-hmm.

-I think of people as being willing and wanting to relate to one another and the dances need -- I always say about it a good dance is a good community.

-Mm, I love that.

I mean, I think about my experience with "In the Upper Room."

I remember, when I first came into that piece, I stepped into the studio... ...and, you know, you kind of workshopped these things with the dancers, especially that were new to your choreography and your movement.

And you saw the way I moved and you thought, "You need to be wearing sneakers."

-Look, not every dancer can what I call cross the line.

You could.

You'd come from this very clear, defined place, to one where you could open your center.

The center here is incredibly specific.

The center, in a pair of sneakers, is much wider.

You can get a much broader base.

So, I said, "Okay, she can get here.

Can she get here?"

Right?

-Well, I mean, going into the role, you know, in "Upper Room," it opened me up in a way that I had not yet experienced and challenged me and pushed me to go beyond.

You know, I'd only ever trained as a classical ballet dancer, so, to have the opportunity to go onstage and use my body and my weight and challenge myself in that way, it has helped me in so many ways.

When I am approaching classical roles, as well, as well.

-Absolutely, yeah.

Right.

-So, thank you for pushing me.

-Well, no, no, no, no.

Thank you, Misty, for being willing to do both ends of the spectrum... -Yeah.

-...to the best of your ability, right?

And the other thing is weight.

I mean, the classical roles, so many of them are about ethereal creatures, which, women actually aren't ethereal creatures, any more than, actually, men are, really.

-[ Laughs ] -So, to have the opportunity to really fill out your whole body is a different way of occupying space, which is, after all, one of the reasons that you wanted to dance, because you wanted more space in your life, right?

-Yeah.

I wanted a way to communicate where I didn't have to speak as well.

-Exactly.

Why are we doing this?

-[ Laughs ] Right!

-♪ Ever since that night ♪ ♪ We've been together ♪ ♪ Lovers at first sight ♪ ♪ In love forever ♪ ♪ It turned out so right ♪ ♪ For strangers in the night ♪ -What does Sinatra's music mean to you and what makes you go back to it again and again?

-This is a hard question.

I can either give you an answer -- I can't give you the real answer.

The real answer is, you see, there are deep reasons for making dances.

Love is one, revenge is another.

-[ Laughs ] -And I'm not going into the details of the Sinatra.

However, it was -- Well, first of all, it's in a lineage of American music.

I'd done Jelly Roll Morton, I did a Bix Beiderbecke, I'd done Fats Waller, I'd done Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Sinatra.

Sinatra had started with the big bands and then he moved into the pop era with the standards.

So, he continued in that tradition that I had begun to work in because it's American music, which, to me, is meaningful.

I understand a lot of the, you know, European classics, but, ultimately, I'm born in Indiana.

I'm not born in France.

-Right.

-I'm very happy with Debussy, and Ravel's nice, too, but I'm still born in Indiana.

So, this is the grounded root of the thing and Sinatra was in that progression.

And he also was vocal.

Using lyric in dance is extremely difficult.

I did it in "Deuce Coupe," but I did it mostly rhythmically.

I'm not really using the meaning of the language.

Sinatra, you're having to deal with poetry.

♪ You're riding high in April ♪ ♪ Shot down in May ♪ ♪ But I know I'm gonna change ♪ ♪ That tune ♪ ♪ When I'm back on top ♪ ♪ Back on top in June ♪ -That meant that you're dealing with theater, you're dealing with drama, you're dealing with characters.

-♪ More ♪ ♪ Much more than this ♪ -You're dealing with relationships... -♪ I did it ♪ ♪ My ♪ -We can either go in tandem... -♪ Way ♪ -...or you can go in opposition to what he's saying.

You know, when I do dances, same thing I want for dancers, I want to ask new questions.

If I'm not learning something, why am I doing this?

And I had not had that kind of context with those many kind of slippery elements before, alright?

You're dealing with theater, you're dealing with rhythm, you're dealing with language, you're dealing with music, the singing of it, the whole -- you know, it was a very big ball of wax going on.

-[ Chuckles ] It kind of leads me into what I wanted to ask you next.

This is meant with so much love... [ Laughs ] -Yeah, yeah.

-...but the rehearsal process can be really grueling.

-Oh, I know.

-[ Laughs ] -It's for your own good, Misty.

And I wanted to know, you know, there's a lot of repetition, of repeating -- -Misty, I'm a coach, alright?

And a coach is responsible for getting their athletes through the meet, uninjured, alright?

-I remember doing "Rabbit in Rogue."

You created that.

-I don't remember that one, but, anyway.

-That was probably one of the most grueling rehearsal processes that I'd ever experienced and I was just curious like if that was, you know, if you're a perfectionist.

I mean, as you said, you're preparing us to not be injured, to just be ready.

You know, I just thought maybe there was something deeper to the ritual of it that, you know, is a part of that process for you?

-Well, I think, in a strange way, Misty, when you mention the word perfect, it's just the opposite.

I'm not looking to make dancers, through this kind of rehearsal process, perfect.

I'm looking to give them a very broad range of options, of choices, so, when they get in a performance and the curtain goes up and something funky happens, they're not going to be worried about being perfect.

They're going to have a lot of different ways of dealing with that and they're going to have the confidence that comes with knowing they're not on just a tightwire.

They have a safety net and that safety net is the rehearsal process.

-And I must say that I always feel prepared when I'm performing your works.

-Yeah, and so you have more fun dancing.

Tell the truth.

-Yes, I do.

You've always had like such a wide variety of dancers that you choose to work with.

Why?

Why, what attracts you to that?

Why not this, you know, this typical ballet, you know, what we think of as this "perfect ballet body"?

You're drawn to human beings.

-I like people who have a feeling for what they want to do, who haven't had that washed out of them by the training and sort of made fungible.

I'm not interested in interchangeable.

So, people always want to know how do I choose dancers?

And I say, dancers walk in through the door.

I'm watching peripherally so they don't know I'm seeing them and I know, by the way they walk in and how they put their bag down whether I want to work with them or not.

-Okay.

-Because they enter the room with an excitement, not a fear.

They're very different.

They're both heightened conditions, but excitement means they're ready for an adventure and fear means they're afraid of an adventure.

And a lot of training -- of all sorts, in all disciplines -- has to do with creating that kind of fear and that's not helpful.

Not if you're working in material where you're trying to evolve something the audience hasn't seen before.

If they've seen it before, great, fine, then everybody is trying to go for "perfect," you know, they're being graded to a 10.

I'm not interested in those scales.

We've done that.

We're there.

We know we do that.

Now, it's, "What do we do?"

-Yeah, that's very -- I mean, you know, starting out, for me, like I was terrified of approaching new movement, but I don't know if you saw that when I stepped into a studio with you, but I think just being around your presence and actually getting on the floor and getting into the groove of doing your movement allowed me to like drop that, I don't know, ego, fear, insecurities, at the door.

-Yeah.

So, I was interested, and am interested in you -- hurry up and get back in shape -- not so you can do what I do, as I said before, but so you can do what you do.

So, you know, your body, obviously, and how you came to the ballet had its own dimensions.

it had its own...questions and that's what makes it interesting.

-When I think about my own journey, so, much of my path, I feel like, has been acknowledging those who shoulders that I stand on and understanding, especially, as a Black artist, as a Black dancer, that I have a responsibility to carry on the legacies of so many.

Thinking of that word, legacy, what does that mean to you?

-Blech.

-[ Laughs ] -I hate that word.

-Twyla, you have... -[ Laughs ] -...a legacy that's going to continue on.

I think you need to acknowledge it.

-You're a sweetheart and a doll and just get your act back together and let's get into work, okay?

-Thank you, Twyla.

-Alright, doll.

Mwah!

-Mmmmm.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪