twyla tharp

Twyla Tharp's roots in Rialto
By FIELDING BUCK
The Press-Enterprise

People who grew up in Rialto in the 1950s consider Twyla Tharp a miracle -- the way she emerged from the orange groves to recreate herself as a leader in the dance world.

Nearly 50 years after attending high school in San Bernardino, Tharp is a Kennedy Center honoree, in a ceremony that will be broadcast Tuesday.

"She is an American original," Tharp's bio reads on the Kennedy Center Honors Web site. "And, for all their hip edginess and carefree lines, her dances at once celebrate and create the best of the American dream."

People who watch PBS probably have some idea of Tharp's contribution to modern dance, which includes choreographing more than 135 works and collaborations with Russian superstar Mikhail Baryshnikov.

People who don't have probably seen the billboard for "Movin' Out" at the Interstate 10/215 interchange. That Broadway musical, with a plot told entirely in dance and Billy Joel songs, won her a 2003 Tony. Its third national tour will bring it to San Bernardino's California Theatre on Jan. 26-28.

Three and a half miles from the venue, Pacific High School has become aware that Tharp was in the class of '59. Vice Principal Dale Folkens said in a phone interview that theater students are raising money for a plaque in her honor and have started a letter-writing campaign to invite her back on campus.

Tharp, however, has had relatively little that's kind to say about this chapter of her life over the years.

'Old west town'

Tharp's bio on her Web site begins with graduation from Barnard College in New York City in 1963. Her 1992 autobiography, "Push Comes to Shove," runs 343 pages of text and photos and polishes off her early years in 45 of them. (The book is named for one of her signature dances.)

She was born in Portland, Ind., in 1941. Her family moved to Rialto in 1951, where her parents owned and operated a drive-in movie theater on Foothill Boulevard.

Here is how she recalled her Inland arrival:
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Rialto Historical Society
The Tharps moved to Rialto from Indiana in 1955, and once there Twyla's parents owned and operated the Foothill Drive-In along Route 66.

"... we finally made it into Rialto, a community stuck along Route 66, somewhere between Fontana and San Bernardino, California, a one-story, pastel-colored, standard Old West town with a single main street, a stand of eucalyptus trees, three civic buildings ... only orange groves, their filthy smudge pots burning to keep the trees from freezing ... "

She studied dance and music with various teachers from Fontana to Redlands and attended Pomona College before transferring.

She had a sister, Twanette, and twin brothers, Stanley and Stanford.

She wrote of herself as a misfit with few friends. She described the family-oriented double features at the drive-in as a way of learning what audiences like and don't like.

Lecile Tharp ran the theater and was something of a stage mother. She and Twyla made the rounds all over Southern California to advance the young dancer's career. Before she moved east, Twyla was already moving out.

The Foothill Drive-In left stronger memories among Rialto residents than Twyla Tharp herself.

John Adams, of the Rialto Historical Society, said in a phone interview that her father, William Tharp, liked to hunt with a bow and arrow and almost hit one of his friends outside the theater.

Lecile prowled the rows of autos looking for people who sneaked in, checking tires for signs of recent movement and trunks for hidden passengers.

'MOST INTENSE'

Adams, who grew up in Rialto, said he didn't believe Twyla Tharp had much interest in their shared hometown untila hint of evidence to the contrary came up. He e-mailed her some photos of her brothers' elementary school and received a cordial reply.

The exchange came about because Adams' brother James, a Stanford professor emeritus in mechanical engineering, met Tharp in Wisconsin at a conference on branding a few years ago. Tharp was there because of her book "The Creative Habit," which teaches people to unleash the creativity within them.

John Adams said his brother described her as "the most intense person he ever met in his life."

In a separate interview, he said that when he got to talking with Tharp, she shared their common bond in Rialto.

James is the one who described her as a miracle. He noted that when Tharp lived in Rialto, the area it offered fewer resources than now.

"Branding" is about presenting the public with a story line that helps sell a product. The Inland area has not been part of the Twyla Tharp brand.

He opined that when she left she reinvented herself as the New Yorker she always was inside.