Chapter 1: What is Twyla Tharp's morning routine and how does she view it?
You have a reputation for having risen early and gotten to the gym by 5 a.m. for two hours, day in after day out. Tell us about that ritual and do you still enjoy it?
It's not a ritual and I never enjoyed it. It's a reality and you do it because you need an instrument that you can challenge. Just set the mechanism for the day you're going to have to do it. It's kind of boring and it's kind of loathsome.
Could you give us a bit of insight into your inner dialogue around days when you don't want to go? Is there a self-talk, or have you learned to push aside the voice that says, maybe not today?
It's simple. If you don't work when you don't want to work, you're not going to be able to work when you do want to work.
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Twyla Tharp. Twyla Tharp is a world-renowned dancer and choreographer.
Her onstage and film works easily place her not just in the top 1% of all choreographers of all time, but also among the top tier of all creative artists past and present. I knew I wanted to host Twila on this podcast after listening to her book, The Creative Habit, where she spells out how to build a schedule, habits and routines that make your best creative expressions come to life.
What I love about it is it's direct and it's action oriented. There's nothing mystical about it. She explains in her book how even for people that have just one hour a day to write or sing or draw or paint or whatever, to get the most from that time in terms of creative output.
Then as I learned more about her, I was also super impressed that even in her 60s, by the way, she's 84 now, she could deadlift more than 200 pounds, which is more than twice her body weight, bench press her body weight for three clean repetitions, and was taking up boxing to keep her movement and reflexes sharp. As you'll see today, she is a phenom, and it comes by way of hard work.
She's still in the gym every single morning at 5 a.m. for two full hours. Today we discuss how to build self-discipline in and around your creative mind. And we discuss movement as a language. There's this new idea emerging in neuroscience that bodily movement, then music, and then speech is how humans came to communicate with each other.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Twyla Tharp share about the role of discipline in creativity?
Everybody is plugged into that same mechanism, and if they swerve into your area, you shift again. You have to continuously be altering perception as an artist. That notion does not seem so relevant these days, perhaps.
Why do you think that is?
Because you could live cheaper. In the 60s, you could live very cheap. Now you cannot live very cheaply as an artistic force. You're paying bills, lots of bills.
I've long thought that the best work that people do is at the beginning when they don't have any feedback yet and they're just being themselves. it's hard to stay connected to that early energy of just being one's oneself without the notion of contracts and feedback and perception of feedback. Do you think it's important?
I've never been of the persuasion that my understanding was the greatest when I knew nothing as when I knew more. I've always been of the persuasion that the more you know, the bigger your challenge. If one looks at lives of artists, for example, Beethoven, take Beethoven early work, take Beethoven late work, very different, different challenges.
There is argument to be made, depending on your particular set, of the coherency of the classicism of the earlier quartets as opposed to the late quartets and the total disillusion that he was able to accomplish at the end of his career, totally taking the sound world apart that he could only actually do because he was deaf.
He had developed, during the course, unfortunately, of a very long time, decades, the awareness that he was losing his hearing. And by the end, he genuinely, basically was completely deaf, which forced him into his own world. And there he looked at himself across the ages. So in a piece, I think, of the Diabelli, which is the last thing he wrote for keyboard after the sonatas.
And he actually had started the Diabelli 15, maybe even I'm forgetting my details here, but 15 years earlier than when he came back to complete it. And he got bored with it initially because to a younger composer, it wasn't challenging enough, right? When he came back to it later, he had a humility about him that said, that theme, which I used to poo-poo because it's like, you're kidding.
He's going, what? And later he comes back and he says... Right. Not stupid, simple. I could never have written anything that simple or that useful. And he finished it, and it's arguably the greatest set of keyboard variations in the entire repertoire. Which do you want? The earlier Beethoven?
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Chapter 3: What does Twyla Tharp mean by 'the spine' in creative work?
John, anyone is always asked for their hit because everyone wants to touch upon that which seems to somehow be their greatest accomplishment. It's aggravating. I mean, obviously it's called cubbyholing. And for the person doing the work, There are artists who work serially, right? Who work in series and who make incremental changes.
And they kind of have, in a way, a stab at the best of all possible worlds. But there are others who feel that, okay, you got that, I got to go over here. And that's because, in a way, they're right. Because if you want to constantly be, it's a game, you want to be gaining the attention, you do it by change. You don't do it by reinforcing. That just creates a comfort zone.
And it can build a reputation. It can build a career. It gives you more and more of what you expect. But for the person who's making the work, that can kind of be deadly.
Did you know Jean-Michel Basquiat?
No. A different generation. I knew the painters, the downtown painters in the 60s.
Could you give me some examples of?
Oh, you want to know the famous names. No, I don't want to know the names. I just have a question about ā Tony Smith, Frank Stella, Motherwell.
Okay. The reason I ask is ā Ad Reinhart. The reason I ask is that earlier you were saying that there's a time or there was a time when a given field ā everyone knew each other and what they were doing. And I like Basquiat. I'm not like obsessed with them or anything. There's a wonderful scene in the movie Basquiat ā
with him and Benicio del Toro, or the actor playing him and Benicio del Toro, about this notion of fame. We'll put a link to it in the caption so people can see it. And it's just a wonderful example of how people will love you, then they'll hate you for how you change, then they'll love you for how you were. And it's hilarious.
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Chapter 4: How does Twyla Tharp navigate the creator-audience dynamic?
But it's rare for me to encounter something that's like, it just felt like, it felt extremely experimental at every part of it. And I couldn't tell whether or not people were telling themselves that they liked it because it was him or whether they really liked it.
What year is this that you went to this concert?
Gosh, this must have been 2008, 2007, 2008.
That's very late. Okay, so Phil obviously has been working since the 60s, and I've done one major collaboration with Phil and one recent collaboration. And in the beginning, the audience for Minimalism... Reich, Reilly, Glass, came gradually. And so when the initial piece called In the Upper Room was done, it had a power and a force that involved also discovery.
Now the later piece, which is called Slack Tide, fills a known commodity. and was addressed slightly differently rather than, I mean, you know, it's percussive. The lyric element has been reduced, okay? And You're a sensitive soul. You think of the word beauty. And that does not mean total elimination. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It means inclusion.
And so the later Glass work was done in conjunction with a Chicago percussion group called Third Coast who Phil's worked with a lot and who he trusts to do iterations, if you will, on the work. And we iterated with a flute. Flutes don't do this.
flutes do this so we put a stream on top of that that's in the music i mean iterations are a study in and of themselves right what makes something different from and yet still the same as good luck with that one uh but that that was the different range i dare say if you go and look at because third coast is produced a recording of this work you listen to slacktide
And then tell me your response to Glass. But basically minimalism took the lyric element and reduced it to just the temporal passage in time.
What's interesting because of all the concerts I've seen, this one still sticks with me as like a stimulus to learn more. Because one thing that I'm totally fascinated by and perplexed by is that with the exception of comedy, the more one learns about something, the artists, what went into the art, the dance, what went into it, typically the more one likes that piece or that genre.
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Chapter 5: What insights does Twyla Tharp share about physicality and aging?
Yeah, I agree. You know, as a neuroscientist, I have to put a call out against sparring for anyone who's not trying to make it a profession. And maybe even for those that are, that's their choice. But But speed bag work and the visual coordination that's involved is also incredible.
Near, far, but also just switching from peripheral to central vision is ā I imagine it improves the brain in many, many ways except for the getting hit in the head part.
Well, probably.
And you're also ā well known for being quite strong. Tell us about your deadlift record.
I was training in a real weight gym with competitive weightlifters and was very serious. from the time I was probably in my 50s until mid-60s, say, and that you were nobody in that gym if you didn't do your body weight for three on the bench. I mean, you know, what are you in here for, right?
So it had that kind of requirement to it, which is very encouraging if you want to lift heavy weight and also snap pneumonia, right? which is like, okay, I actually never did that. But the jolt of pulling more weight off the ground than you really can do or you have ever done really does send a rush to the body that is unique.
And what was your personal record? 227. 227 deadlift. Yep. Awesome.
Oh, I don't know about that. I mean, you just do it day in, day out. And I wasn't, you know, you can't train day in, day out. But training rigorously and continuously for probably eight or ten years, yeah.
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Chapter 6: How does Twyla Tharp define the relationship between standards and mental health in dance?
Again, that's drinkelement.com slash Huberman to claim a free sample pack. Several times you've mentioned the bar. I think most of us understand there's a bar along the wall with a mirror sometimes behind it, etc. What For the uninformed, like for me, what is bar work really about? And could you give us an example of a few ā I mean is it designed to improve flexibility?
Is it for ā what is this notion of the bar?
All of the above. A bar is a set regimen of exercises that are developed ā to strengthen the structure of the body to basically approach the jumps to gain height in the air. for the men, for the women if they're working on point, the strength in the legs and the torso to be able to support that weight in the little area down here.
And so it's developed essentially from Mars evolved, but basically their format is brilliantly designed and begins with usually pliƩ, which the terminology is French. which means to fold. So you're folding the body and the plie. You're folding, you're going down, and the positions are first, second, third, fourth, and fifth, okay?
First, you have actually one center that comes off of here and here, or you're off to this side, or you're off to that side. But if you're working very rigorously, you're working to develop that single center in first. Second is a much more evolved kind of hierarchy muscular kind of situation where it's being supported from the torso and the leg muscles. more than from the feet.
The third position is never used because third looks like a bad fifth, so it's just been eliminated, which is kind of too bad because I actually do use third, but not if I think it's at a moment where it could be judgmentally determined. Actually, it was an uncrossed fifth. Oh, dear. But in any case, so third weight is somewhere between openly distributed and
cross through a single center between the two legs, okay? This is the fourth, right? And the fifth, that fourth is closed, so that it's just a reduced, even higher center. Okay, in these positions, first, second, usually not third, first, second, fourth, and fifth, pliƩ, first to bend, to fold. Next, tendre, to stretch.
to reach out from that base, not so far as you're going to fall, but far enough so that you have to evolve and occupy a little bit more space each time you do it. And you will go first from the tendu to a pliƩ, to a tendu to a pliƩ, and then tendu to a straight leg, which by drawing in, you're pulling the center even higher. And so therefore it comes later in the series of exercises.
They're designed to evolve, right? After the stretches comes the rond de jambe, one of the few exercises actually that's circular. Most of ballet comes from fencing. It's very linear. It's the attack, it's the retreat. But it doesn't have a whole lot of that going on unless somebody's gotten very ambitious and flamboyant with their fencing styles, could be, I don't know.
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Chapter 7: What does Twyla Tharp say about the impact of competition on young dancers?
Both sides, by the way, you're always reversing. Even the ones that are in a symmetrical position, you still reverse right and left because, as I'm sure you're well aware, right and left occupy... your body all the time and are constantly arguing with one another. We have an interior conflict going on that makes almost anything else in life impossible.
But so we have right and left, which we're always trying to balance, okay? After rond de jambe, you can have petit battement, which is little throws, little throws. So from your fifth or from your first throw, You're reaching quickly out, little darting movements, right? Then you can have frappe, which is to beat frappe. And so from the ankle, it'll be a flexed foot that extends, boom, and boom.
And all of this is about developing releve to lift, to releve, right, up to the metatarsal as high as you can get, pulling up through all of this releve. And this develops a strength that you need to jump because from the plie down, you're going to drive up. And the more power you have down here, the more you can get up. That little extra eighth of an inch counts.
So frappe, after frappe is grand battement, the big battement, the big throw, all the way up and down. But not all the way up, changing the angle of the hip so that the rotation is going to alter the line. Holding the hip straight through, up. E, up. either through fourth or through second or through arabesque and back. Those are the fundamentals.
Now, if you're Merce Cunningham, you can operate in all of the interstices through all of that, but you still have the regulation of the body's map, and that's what the ballet has already done.
Amazing.
Amazing. Not amazing, just very highly evolved in terms of how to control movement in terms of strengthening and developing the body.
Did the people that developed this care about the underlying physiology or they just... And I'm not saying they should, but it seems like an incredible intuition at least that they came up with it.
You'll forgive me for saying something stupid like this. The body is very smart. And one of my problems has always been what knows what first. Does the body already get it, brain, and we're trying to educate you? Or is it brain telling body what to do?
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Chapter 8: How does Twyla Tharp view the role of a name in shaping identity?
I mean, for example, a great composer is a great mathematician, right? And the indications and the divisions of time I would accept is coming, you know, particularly because of how you see the notation and how the note can be subdivided. It's a very visual thing. Once you're into the eye, you're into the brain. I mean, you know, it's like, do you know what I'm saying? This is more about the body.
And this, how the toes are going about its business down here, are very much involved about the body.
Yeah. Thinking sometimes is really overrated.
For sure.
Yeah. Yeah. As human old world primates, which we are, we got a bunch more machinery up front in the prefrontal cortex, which let us think and plan and reflect and strategize a lot more. Also allowed humans to do bad things a lot more. Trickery and things like that, but also to plan really incredible, wonderful things.
But I do think in many ways it was at the expense of some of the machinery involved in these, I hate to use the language lower, let's just say more fundamental intuition. I don't want to give too many anecdotes, but years ago I developed an obsession with comparative neurology. There's this beautiful journal, it's hundreds of years old, called the Journal of Comparative Neurology.
I was fortunate enough to participate with that journal for a while, reviewing these papers, which for modern science, people don't really care about these papers. They're like, what is the cerebellar vermis shape of the Atlas turtle? I don't even know if there's an Atlas turtle, but I guess we were talking about Teddy Atlas, of the whatever, right?
Of the two-toed, three-toed sloth, whatever, all these weird species. But no single paper says, teaches you that much, except about this really arcane thing about the Mallard duck hypothalamus or something. I'm sure that paper is in there, by the way.
But when you start comparing the nervous systems of these different animals and the way they move and the way they think, because there are certainly papers about humans in there, you start getting emergent fundamentals. You go, oh my goodness, you know, once the forebrain got bigger, the cerebellum got a Evolution starts to make a lot more sense.
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