When Push Comes to Shove: An Autobiography

The wit and drive of Tharp's dances also feed her life story, which she tells here with a cool ebullience. Born in rural Indiana, she and her family moved to Southern California, where, still a child, she began studying dance with a visionary fanaticism that also grips her narrative. The book is sometimes very funny--George Balanchine makes an appearance as the Loch Ness monster in one of Tharp's dreams--but it is also earnest as Tharp describes her efforts to make her mark on the seminal modern dance scene of New York City in the 1960s. Tharp tells of her difficult marriage to painter Bob Huot and, elliptically, of their son; documents the life of her dance company; candidly confronts the failure of her production of Singin' in the Rain ; and considers most, though not all, of her dances. A few false notes include fulsome thanks paid to patrons and supporters and an overdetermined finale (``Finally I can feel that my attempts to discover truth through objective distance have linked up with my gut''). Photos not seen by PW. Major ad/promo. (Nov.)