Push Comes To Shove has gained a place in the international repertory as
the world's best known "cross-over" ballet and in the Tharp canon as a
landmark creation. After its ragtime prelude, which introduces its central
male dancer and his two accompanying ballerinas almost as if they were
soloing vaudevillians, the ballet presses into the four successive movements
of Haydn's "rococo" symphony. This opens with the male dancer's solo, huge
of scale, demonic of force and yet casual of tone and manner; it remains a
widely famous highlight of late 20th century male virtuosity. (The ballet's
initial, experimental moves had been devised especially for Mikhail
Baryshnikov to some baroque Bach [see: Bach Partita].) Wittily timed and
intricate virtuoso dancing, especially for the leading//principal male lead,
intermixes with seemingly casual, off-hand movement. The result indicates a
situation that finds the male dancer questing sometimes bemusedly and other
times hungrily through a world largely dominated by female dancers. The two
leading women who initially accompany the leading man have distinct dance
identities by way of their physicality and temperament. The taller of the
two recalls something of Giselle's wili queen, Myrtha; the smaller one, a
touch of the same ballet's more innocent, title character. Other women, two
teams of eight, also figure in the realm through which the central male
dancer finds himself wandering. From the start, a derby hat becomes a
favored prop and/or costume accessory. A subsidiary group of courtierlike
men and women also figure in the ballet plan, adding to and complicating the
work's momentum and spiking its wit. Haydn's very lively ("vivace assai")
finale becomes most lively indeed as all the cast pour on stage and mill
around the leads, especially the leading man, who variously rockets and
gyrates through with a power all its own. Hats, hats and more hats also
reappear, with a hats off gesture capping the whole happy affair.