Twyla Tharp opens The Collaborative Habit, her follow-up to the 2003 triumph, The Creative Habit, noting that as a choreographer she is also a "career collaborator," and the lessons she has learned apply to any discipline. And therein lies the problem. Unlike her earlier work with its myriad exercises that left me invigorated and inspired, The Collaborative Habit is about work, the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, day-in/day-out process of getting the job done. The creative process prompts us to take flight; collaborations require that our feet remain solidly on the ground.
But if the process is less magical, Tharp's insights are no less relevant. She understands that the best partnerships both challenge us and change us, and when successful, they produce something greater and different than either partner could have achieved independently.
I found especially interesting her point that the less well you know a partner, the more advance work you must do, including building in protection against failure. And yet despite her contractual escape clauses — specifying deadlines that must be met, milestones that must be marked — she has never walked away from a project. It is that work ethic I admired so much in The Creative Habit. Twyla Tharp believes in working to make it work.
And if new partnerships prompt a flurry of due diligence, collaborations with friends give her even greater pause. She understands the siren call of wanting to work with people you like, who share your values and your dreams. But she cautions against it, detailing the great risks working together brings and questioning how losing a friend could possibly be worth it.
If The Collaborative Habit does not have the juice of The Creative Habit, it is just as generous, offering a front row seat on all that Tharp has learned in four decades of practice.
