How Twyla Tharp copes with her “five big fears”

Twyla

In The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life, published by Simon & Schuster (2006), Twyla Tharp observes, “No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear; the key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you’ve begun. When I feel that sense of dread, I try to make it as specific as possible.” In the excerpt that follows, she offers sound advice to those of us who also feel “a certain amount of dread” from time to time.

*     *     *

Let me tell you my five big fears. These are mighty demons, but they’re hardly unique to me. You probably share some. If I let them, they’ll shut down my impulses. (“No, you can’t do that”) and perhaps turn off the spigots of creativity altogether. So I combat my fears with a staring down ritual, like a boxer looking at his opponent right in the eye before about.

1. People will laugh at me? Not the people I respect; they haven’t yet, and they’re not going to start now.

2. Someone has done it before? Honey, it’s all been done before. Nothing’s really original. Not Homer or Shakespeare and certainly nit you. Get over yourself.

3. I have nothing to say? An irrelevant fear. We all have something to say. Plus, you’re panicking too soon. If the dancers don’t walk out on you, chances are the audience won’t either.

4. I will upset someone I love? A serious worry that is not easily exorcised or stared down because you never know how loved ones will respond to your creation. The best you can do is to remind yourself that you’re a good person with good intentions. You’re trying to create unity, not discord. See the curtain call. See the people standing up. Hear the crowd roaring.

5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind? Toughen up. Leon Battista Alberti, s fifteenth-century architecture theorist, said, “Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.” But better an imperfect Dome in Florence than cathedrals in the clouds.

*     *     *

Twyla Tharp, one of America’s greatest choreographers, began her career in 1965, and has created more than 130 dances for her company as well as for the Joffrey Ballet, The New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, London’s Royal Ballet, and American Ballet Theatre. She has won two Emmy awards for television’s Baryshnikov by Tharp program, and a Tony Award for the Broadway musical Movin’ Out. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1993 and was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1997. She lives and works in New York City. Her books include Push Comes to Shove: An Autobiography (1992) as well as The Creative Habit and, more recently, The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together, also published by Simon & Schuster (2009). The last two are available in a paperbound edition.

Posted in

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.