Created as the culminating segment of The Catherine Wheel, a full-program
piece of dance/theater [see: The Catherine Wheel], the all-dancing "Golden
Section" was choreographed for an especially adept and cohesive Tharp group:
"There were thirteen dancers," Tharp has recalled, "and there was one
impulse." Set to four separately named musical compositions by Byrne, the
continuous segment of dancing originally took over a stage just then cleared
of its scenic and property elements. In Tharp's words, reflecting on the
particular impact of this forthright dance segment: "the dancers stormed the
stage with a new, positive energy" and anything that wasn't sheer dancing
"disappeared into a harmonious wash of light, costumes, music and movement."
The scene was "an abstract arena of pure energy." Dressed in dancer/athlete
get-ups of burnished golds, as if they were all Olympic champions, the seven
male and six female dancers sail, soar, and tear through the air of the
stage's golden, glowing light. One of its song's lyrics tells "What a Day
That Was," as its dancers tell what wonders only blissful joy and energy can
communicate. Dashing, jogging, coupling, and intermixing, the men and women
act as individuals and as an individually select race of superbeings. One of
the references in the "Catherine Wheel" of the full work's title names a
pinwheel-spinning firework that shoots off sparks in 360-degree directions;
Tharp's non-stop, aerobically heated, artful activities achieve with
movement, energy that fireworks can with shooting sparks.