Announcer: This program
was made possible by
contributions to
your PBS station
from viewers like you.
Thank you.
Sternum up.
Yeah.
Breathe deep.
Mm-hmm.
Shoulders back.
Now we stride.
We don't...
Man, voice-over:
A lesson from Twyla Tharp
in allowing our bodies
to take up space,
even as we grow older,
what she refers to as amplitude.
Amplitude, moving out,
constantly feeling that
you can move out.
As age becomes reality, I think
we start to retreat, we retract,
we become protective,
we become secluded,
and we begin to ossify.
But that's the body
becoming smaller.
In a way, it is
becoming smaller.
Well, that's its problem.
Let's just get on
with it, shall we?
♪♪
Amna Nawaz: Hi, everyone.
This is "Beyond the Canvas"
from the "PBS Newshour."
I'm Amna Nawaz.
Tonight, we meet artists
who have been recognized
at the highest level
in their field.
We call them the greats.
You'll hear from
renowned conductors
Michael Tilson Thomas
and Gustavo Dudamel,
photojournalist Lynsey Addario,
filmmaker Sir David
Attenborough,
and just now, dancer
and choreographer Twyla Tharp.
Through these conversations,
you'll see
how passion is the engine
that drives their work.
The people you're about to meet
were first featured
on the "PBS Newshour"
before the pandemic,
but tonight, you'll meet them
on a new canvas, and maybe
see them and their work
through a different lens,
right here on
"Beyond the Canvas."
Now back to this profile on
one of the great choreographers
of our age--Twyla Tharp.
"Newshour's" chief correspondent
for arts, culture, and society
Jeffrey Brown spoke to her
at the American Ballet Theatre
in 2019.
Then 78, Tharp had
just released her book
called "Keep it Moving: Lessons
for the Rest of Your Life."
Tharp: I wrote this to
help others believe
that constantly
you can be evolving,
that you don't
accept the rumor that
as the body ages,
it becomes less.
It becomes different.
Hopefully more.
So, do you think of this
as a self-help book?
I look at it as
a self-survival book.
Brown, voice-over:
As a girl, Tharp took
dance and music lessons
of all kinds.
In the 1960s, she was
dancing and choreographing
as part of
an important experimental
modern dance scene.
And by the seventies,
she was creating
groundbreaking works
like "Deuce Coupe"
for the Joffrey Ballet.
Set to music by the Beach Boys,
it brought together
elements of both
ballet and modern dance.
She made "Push Comes to Shove"
for Mikhail Baryshnikov,
part of an acclaimed partnership
that included
the award-winning PBS special
"Baryshnikov by Tharp" in 1984.
[Applause]
Dance after dance, combining
rigor and boundless energy.
She also choreographed films,
including "Hair"
and "Amadeus"...
[Opera music playing]
and conceived and directed
the Broadway hit "Movin' Out"
to the music of Billy Joel.
[Rock music playing]
In her new book, she provides
a series of exercises
and says age is not the enemy,
stagnation is the enemy.
Tharp: We all have that
laid on us
by our culture.
Being squirmy
is not really--
you can't do this
at dinner parties,
but this is how you
keep your system,
your metabolic system,
rolling, by doing--
you don't do it
like this.
Yeah. I mean,
you can't--
[indistinct]--
you can't do this
even in the way
we're talking,
but you want me to.
You want us to.
Yeah, because if you
keep doing this,
chances are your body
is going to be
more productive
in the moment
and you'll have something
left in the evening,
particularly as you
become older
and you buy into
this reality
that older folks
can do less.
Uh, OK, prove it.
Brown, voice-over: Her own
physical regime is legendary.
We watched
an early-morning workout
at her home studio.
Breathing and stretching,
cycling,
and various kinds of strength
and resistance exercises.
Tharp: I could bench
my body weight for 3
and I deadlifted
227 pounds to waist,
which was twice
my body weight, OK?
So--but I developed
a core strength
that the classical
dancer doesn't have.
Now in making a piece
of this sort
for a classical
dancer, I can bring
that kind of physical
intelligence to them
and say,
"Try it this way."
You've had, of course,
great success,
but you've also
experienced failure.
Really?
Yes, I--
Are you kidding?
I'm sorry to tell you.
But you advise us
in the book, you know,
to accept those failures,
right, to take risks.
They're not failures.
What are they?
They're adventures
of a different sort.
You may not have gotten
what you set out to get,
but there is something to
be learned from everything.
There was a profile
in the "Times."
It says--I'm quoting--
"Ms. Tharp remains
among the very few
female choreographers..."
Oh, please.
Give me a [beep] break.
"To have had a lasting
influence on ballet."
Why don't they say
one of the few
short choreographers to have
an influence on the ballet?
The female nomenclature
is highly abusive,
it's ghettoizing, uh,
and it's irrelevant
to what I've done.
You don't want to
hear it at all.
I'm not interested.
Yeah.
I'm a worker.
I'm an artist.
I make dances.
End of story.
Judge me with the best.
Don't judge me
with the best women.
In the meantime,
the final piece of advice
that you give all of us
in this book
is "shut up and dance."
That's right.
Shut up
and do what you love
and, you know,
be grateful
and keep doing it
and stop
second-guessing it.
OK. Very good.
"I'm getting old.
I can't do what I love."
[Beep], in a word.
[Chuckles]
It's gonna change, that's all.
It's not gonna be the same.
It's gonna be different.
Just like Tharp,
Michael Tilson Thomas
has spent his entire life
doing what he loves.
Tilson Thomas is
one of the great
musicians of his generation.
In 2020, at the height
of the COVID pandemic,
he stepped down
as music director
and conductor of
the San Francisco Symphony.
Jeffrey Brown is back
with this profile of a maestro
forced to find another mission.
[Classical music playing]
Brown, voice-over: In March,
Tilson Thomas was ending
a 25-year run
as conductor and music director
of the San Francisco Symphony
when the COVID shutdown began.
[Record scratch]
Tilson Thomas: It was a shock.
Kind of numbing at first.
Right in the middle
of a rehearsal,
day before we would start to
tour to Carnegie Hall
and Europe,
say, "Well, guess what?
It's not happening" or
"Some of it's not happening,"
and then gradually,
more and more
of the tour wasn't happening,
and then the end of the year
wasn't happening.
Brown, voice-over: The planned
celebration of his tenure--
cancelled.
Life and art interrupted
by the reality of
a deadly disease.
So, we came to the
strange situation where
metabolic beings,
as we musicians are,
it wasn't that "get up
in the morning,
"go to rehearsal,
practice, get home,
"get a rest, and then
"go out and rev
your metabolism up
"to its highest at
around 10:30 at night,
"then go home and put
yourself to sleep
and then do it
the next day."
That's the way we
live, and suddenly,
that was all gone.
[Playing upbeat tune]
Brown, voice-over: Instead,
MTT, as he's known,
is using his time
to lean into his craft
as musician, composer,
and mentor.
Tilson Thomas was born
in Los Angeles
into an artistic family.
His grandparents were
Yiddish theater stars.
His father and mother both
worked in the film industry.
[Playing slow tune]
By 19, he was working with
and conducting premieres
by great composers like
Stravinsky and Copland.
His big break came with
the Boston Symphony,
then London, and finally
in 1995,
San Francisco.
[Classical music playing]
In 1987, he founded Miami's
New World Symphony.
The goal--
an orchestral academy,
to prepare young musicians
for professional careers,
a bridge between
conservatory training
and a player's first
orchestral gig.
[Violin playing]
These days, he works remotely
with symphony musicians
like Georgia native
Chelsea Sharpe.
Wow. You sound in
absolutely great shape.
What have you
seen in
the young musicians
you work with?
How are they coping?
How are they dealing
with this year?
All the plans
that they had,
the auditions they
were set to take,
the new positions they
were about to begin.
The most creative time
of their lives
had to stop, so they had
to look around and think,
"How can I reinvent myself?
"What else is there
for me to do?
"How can I come out
of this period
being the best that I
can be to go forward?"
Here you are, wanting to
be in front of people,
trying to get your--
start a career
and make a life
as a musician.
How hard has it been
and how have you
coped with it?
We finally had time
to sort of reflect
and personally speaking,
I was grateful for that time
to just sit
with the instrument
and, you know,
maybe think about
some things
technically that
I hadn't had
the luxury of time
to kind of
think about before.
Brown, voice-over: A luxury
Tilson Thomas believes
they all need.
Normally, musicians
are worried about
what is going to
happen this weekend?
The next concert, and the next
and the next and the next.
And now we're in
this period where
we need to turn our
attention just to
how are we slowly
developing
as musicians, as artists,
and as people?
♪ Bom, ba-beem, ♪
ba-bom, da-da-dum ♪
Brown, voice-over: That's
just what Los Angeles native
Corbin Castro has managed,
creating an online music academy
for children age 8 to 12...
Castro: This is not necessarily
the kind of French horn
that we're associating
with Tchaikovsky.
Brown, voice-over: Developed
without prior connection
to any youth music programs,
and it's all virtual.
It became very apparent to us
the possibility
that this program
had to reach
underresourced students
and provide technical training
and super-personalized
mentorship
in order to show them
how classical music
can have a positive influence
not just on their lives
but also the lives of
the people in their communities.
Brown: Is this all
pandemic-related,
to start thinking
this way
in different terms about
yourself as a musician
and part of the community?
Yeah, exactly.
It kind of combined
all the best parts
of what music can offer
and how music
can enrich lives.
Brown, voice-over: Violist
Stephanie Block agrees.
It's the courage to
take on something that
challenges you
as a player.
And then it's
the courage to kind of
bare your soul again
and give yourself
to whoever needs it.
What future do you see
for classical music,
especially given
the young people
that you're working with?
Well, all the young
people I'm working with
have a real
commitment to
sharing their music
and their vision
with people younger
than they are,
and as a real
life commitment,
have taken on
the role as teacher
in a very expanded way,
not just in
a studio, but over
the internet,
in communities.
They're much
more dedicated to it
and I think the new
ways that they're going
about this will bring
great new things.
[Upbeat tune playing]
For Gustavo Dudamel,
a moment of revelation came
when he decided
to devote his life
to changing the image of
orchestras in today's culture.
Dudamel is one of
the world's most celebrated
classical musicians,
and as the conductor
of the Los Angeles
Philharmonic,
he's worked tirelessly to make
music accessible to all,
including students
in underserved communities.
Jeffrey Brown learned why
Dudamel sees art
as access to beauty.
Brown: At the Camino Nuevo
Charter Academy,
a public school in Los Angeles'
MacArthur Park,
the star of the show recently
was L.A. Philharmonic conductor
Gustavo Dudamel.
He was there to open
a new site for YOLA,
the Youth Orchestra
Los Angeles,
a program to offer free,
high-quality music lessons
and support to students
in underserved communities.
Dudamel: When I see them,
I'm one of them. I go back--
You feel that still?
Completely.
[Serene classical music playing]
Brown: By now, Dudamel's
own story
is the stuff of legend...
[Rousing orchestral music]
coming up through Venezuela's
famed El Sistema program,
created in 1975
by José Antonio Abreu,
which has brought music lessons
and orchestra training
to hundreds of thousands
of children,
many from poor backgrounds.
As a teenager,
Dudamel became conductor
of the program's
Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra,
and today, he's one
of the most celebrated
classical musicians
in the world.
[Light classical music playing]
Ten years into his time
as conductor in a city of stars,
his image is everywhere,
and he remains committed
to changing the image of
orchestras in today's culture.
Dudamel: I think it's
a representation
of the community,
the orchestra.
We have to avoid that--
I don't know how to call,
but eltist way
as we see art.
Elitist.
We are--elitist, yes.
You know that--that--
you know, we are in
a mountain here, and the
rest of the people is there.
It's not about art.
But a lot of people
do see it that way,
especially
classical music.
But we are
transforming that.
When the people see
that they are represented
by the best art, by
the best culture,
it's the best, and that is
what we want to create.
Brown: Music, Dudamel says
over and over,
is a fundamental
human right.
Dudamel: It's a big idea
about it's simple
and it's very objective
because art is
creativity, art--art
is access to beauty.
And what our children,
in our times,
they're not having
access to that,
you know.
We live a very
pragmatical world,
where, you know,
you have to produce,
you have to do this, you
have to learn in that way.
But where is the space
to contemplation, to creativity,
to work as a team,
you know, to create beauty?
[Orchestra playing
festive tune]
Brown: We visited
YOLA at HOLA,
an afterschool program
where children 6 and up have
access to instruments, lessons,
and orchestra practice
[Playing
haltingly]
Brown: Occasionally,
the mentoring here
is peer-to-peer.
Girl: You're also pressing
your, um, bow too hard.
Brown:
Two young cellists--
16-year-old
Zenaida Aparicio
and 14-year-old
Mary Ellie Flores--
attend nearby schools.
Did you have the opportunity
to play music in school?
No.
Yeah.
The only opportunity
I had was here.
Brown: Did you get
to meet Gustavo Dudamel?
Flores:
It's pretty exciting,
so many feelings
just at once.
He's a big person
in our life.
Brown: As Dudamel is moving
forward in Los Angeles,
his homeland of Venezuela
is another story...
Venezuela!
Brown: after years
of political,
economic,
and humanitarian crisis.
[Pop]
El Sistema is
a government-funded program,
and the Simón Bolívar
Orchestra
regularly performs
at government functions.
After Dudamel did write
a "New York Times"
op-ed last year
critical of the government,
Maduro responded
by canceling two tours
of the Bolívar Orchestra.
Dudamel: You have to understand
your position and your
role in the society,
and I really believe that
you can create bridges.
For me,
music have to unite.
If you get from one side to
the other, then you destroy
that possibility...
Mm-hmm.
to build, you know,
a communication.
[Orchestra playing softly]
Brown: Here in Los Angeles
in the meantime,
the focus is on playing
beautiful music...
[Woman singing in Spanish]
Brown: and reaching
more young people.
Dudamel:
Every child have access
to music and to art.
That is the dream.
Yeah.
That is my dream, you know,
to embrace the world
with art,
and it's not naive.
That's it.
It's simple, but...
[Children's orchestra playing]
that is the most
beautiful thing.
For Lynsey Addario, beauty comes
from being present
during life's most intimate
and intense moments.
As a photojournalist,
Addario's covered conflict
around the globe,
and her work has won her
a Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy Award,
and a MacArthur Genius
Fellowship.
In 2016, she offered this
"Brief but Spectacular" take
on all the risk involved in
documenting beauty and conflict.
"If your pictures
aren't good enough,
you're not close enough."
That's a classic
Robert Capa quote.
He was a very famous
war photographer.
And it's the truth.
We cannot do our jobs
from further back.
And I have to care.
I have to bring myself
emotionally closer
to the subject.
I believe in these stories.
I believe they have to be told.
And so I force myself
to go to these places.
It's not an adrenaline rush,
and it's not an addiction.
I have been kidnapped twice--
once in Garma,
which is a village outside of
Fallujah, by Sunni insurgents,
and once in Libya.
I was sure we were about to die.
And all I can
think about is, "Really?
Is this where I'm going
to see the end of my life?"
"What am I doing here?
Why is it so important
for me to be here?"
And I have to ask myself those
questions, because a big part
of this job is knowing that we
might die at any given time.
People always ask, like,
"Are you stoic when you're
shooting?"
And I am anything but stoic.
When I'm watching someone die,
I become
very overwhelmed with emotion,
and I'm crying as I'm shooting.
I think it would be
really strange if I didn't cry
when I saw the things I see,
because I see
some of the most horrific things
and some of the most
beautiful things.
Being a war photographer
comes with great sacrifice.
It's almost impossible
to have a personal life.
The amount of psychological
and physical trauma that
each one of us carries with us
from covering war
over many, many years is
extraordinary.
When I first started doing
this job,
I had a really hard time
reconciling the fact that
life went on outside
of these war zones,
and I would come back
to New York,
and everyone was at a bar and
getting drunk and having fun.
And I was so confused.
I don't understand
why no one cares
and people aren't
out on the street protesting.
I had to make a decision
at some point that if I
was going to lead this life,
I had to not leave behind
the things I've seen,
but be present.
When I go home to be
with my family
and my husband and my son,
I have to be there for them.
I was so frustrated
by people being so dismissive
of the deeper reasons
why anyone would cover war.
It's about educating people,
policy-makers,
talking about
human rights abuses.
Once a photographer
starts seeing the impact of
his or her work,
it's impossible to turn away.
I mean, it's impossible
to stop doing it.
My name is Lynsey Addario,
and this is
my "Brief but Spectacular" take
on life as a photojournalist.
Another genius
behind the lens is
filmmaker
Sir David Attenborough.
Like Addario, he prides himself
on how close he can get,
in this case,
to the natural world.
My "NewsHour" colleague
William Brangham spoke
to this great about documenting
the current crisis
facing humanity.
Sir David Attenborough:
The living world is
a unique and spectacular marvel.
William Brangham: No one
has given us a more intimate
or stunning look at our planet
than Sir David Attenborough.
But now,
after a near 70-year career,
he says we are running the
planet headlong into disaster.
In his new Netflix documentary
and companion book,
both titled
"A Life on Our Planet,"
the famed filmmaker
wants us to recognize
what's happening, and to
act before it's too late.
As you say in
the film and in the book
that when you were
a young man, going to
all these exotic places,
you had the sense
at the time
that man's imprint
was not being felt.
Attenborough: I mean,
you can go to a glacier
that you were there
maybe five, 10 years ago,
and it has retreated,
but you think, "Oh, well.
"That's just this glacier.
Maybe there's another
one that's increasing."
But there are some things
that are irrevocable
and so dramatic
and distressing that you
can't brush them away.
The one, I suppose,
was the tipping point was
when I dived
on the coral reef,
which I have known
perfectly well--
on the Great Barrier Reef in
Australia--and suddenly
saw a cemetery,
and, suddenly, it was dead.
And these corals,
this extraordinary,
wonderful construction
of corals was dead--white.
And that was a shock.
In the past, you
would often talk about
man's impact
on the world,
but would move on,
in a sense.
This film, you really
clearly seem to say:
"We are not moving on.
I cannot stress this
point strong enough."
Well, you put it very well.
That is exactly what I feel.
And all I know is that, if you
see these things and realize
what they mean, you simply
can't sit back and say,
"Well, I'm not
going to bother."
Brangham, voice-over:
Attenborough argues
for a rapid shift
to renewable energy
to sustainable agriculture,
for a slowing of population
growth, and for what he calls
a rewilding of the land
and the oceans
to give them time
to rebound.
Brangham: How confident
are you that we will,
in fact, move from
these isolated examples
to a true moment
for change?
I'm not in the least
confident that we
will do so in time.
And I certainly feel, although
the situation is worse,
I believe that the world is
becoming more aware of
what needs to be done
to a much greater
extent than only,
say, five, 10 years ago.
It does seem to me
a worldwide realization
of the crisis
which we are facing.
And it's been spearheaded,
of course, by young people,
and quite rightly, too.
It's their future.
The kids of today are--
that's their life, you know?
And we owe it to them
to do everything we can
to make sure that
disaster's averted.
Brangham:
When we talk about
sixth extinction or
global climate change,
it's still very easy
for so many people
to put this view
out of their minds
and just keep on.
But, actually,
in your country,
it's more unlikely for that
to happen than in mine.
I mean, you have faced
disaster after disaster.
You have got
rising sea levels.
You had cyclones,
hurricanes moving through
with greater ferocity and
frequency than ever before.
We see on
our television newsreel
coverage of appalling things
that happen in your country
because of climate change,
seem to me overwhelming.
And it's nice to say,
"Oh, it's nothing.
It's just a passing phase."
It isn't,
and the statistics
show it isn't.
It is a major movement
that's happening.
And your country
and my country
and the rest of the world have
got to do something about it.
And we can.
And we know what to do.
Sir David Attenborough,
thank you so much
for talking with us,
and thank you for
your remarkable career.
Thank you so much.
Attenborough, along with the
others featured in this episode,
are truly remarkable.
Their vision, passion, and drive
have propelled them
to excellence.
And for that, we are grateful.
Join the conversation
on our website.
That's PBS.org/Newshour/Canvas
and find more "Canvas" arts
stories on the "PBS Newshour."
I'm Amna Nawaz.
For all of us
at the "PBS NewsHour,"
thanks for joining me here on
"Beyond the Canvas."
We'll see you soon.
Nawaz: Next time
on "Beyond the Canvas,"
singer and songwriter
Dolly Parton.
I think I take
myself more serious
as a songwriter
than anything else.
That's just been the thing
that I've seemed to enjoy
the most because it's
my therapy, it's my pleasure,
it's my job, it's my joy.
Nawaz: One of the extraordinary
women we focus on next.
♪♪
Announcer: This program was made
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contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you.
Thank you.