Words To Dream By
“Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.”
Born in Portland, Indiana in 1941, choreographer Twyla Tharp was named after Twila Thornburg, the “Princess” of the eighty-ninth Annual Muncie Fair. And while her mother had changed the “I” to “Y” believing it would look better on a theater marquee, it would clearly take much more to get a Quaker farmgirl out of her small town and onto the world stage.
Luckily, Twyla was exposed to music and dance from the time she was just eighteen months old, learning ballet, tap, jazz, and modern; as well as piano, violin and drums. It’s that immersion that allowed for the poetic escapism and imagining that Tharp’s quote speaks to. Sadly, her beautiful words can’t help but remind me of the millions of underserved children who, today, are denied art in their schools… and much of the dreaming that comes with it. Is there anyone who needs the ability to escape—if only in their heads—more?