In the summer of 2002, over a thousand people filed into a Chicago theater to see the debut of a dance musical. During the first act, the audience looked so miserable and confused that the creator worried they’d leave after intermission. In a scathing review, theater critic Michael Phillips called it “strenuous, chaotic . . . crazily uneven . . . ill-conceived.” The show was the brainchild of Twyla Tharp, best known for her choreography of ballets for Mikhail Baryshnikov—and of dances in films like Hair and Amadeus.
