TWYLA THARP DANCE

Joyce Theater, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th Street; (212) 242-0800. Season ends Aug. 9

TWYLA Tharp has a genius for many things, not least of which is finding, recruiting and animating dancers.

When the small, hand-picked Twyla Tharp Dance troupe went into Tharp and Billy Joel’s Broadway hit, “Movin’ Out,” virtually as a body, Tharp didn’t waste any time. She found what Dorothy Parker called “a whole new set of old best friends” – and formed a brand new troupe.

Monday, after a triumphant European tour, this new Twyla Tharp Dance made its New York debut, opening a two-week season at the Joyce.

The troupe consists of eight splendid dancers, some better known than others: Emily Coates, Whitney Simler, Lynda Sing, Stuart Capps, Matthew Dibble, Charlie Neshyba-Hodges, Jason McDole and Dario Vaccaro.

The program offers three short works, followed by “Surfer at the River Styx,” the latter set to an original score by Donald Knaack with costumes by Santo Loquasto and lighting by Scott Zielinski.

The evening opens with “Known By Heart Duet,” a virtuoso comic variant of a classic pas de deux originally created for American Ballet Theatre, danced here with dazzling, offbeat aplomb by Sing and Dibble.

This was followed by Tharp’s music-free classic, 1970’s rhythmically intricate “The Fugue,” danced by two men, McDole and Vaccaro, and a woman, Simler.

The only ballet new to New York was “Westerly Round,” a brilliant and brilliantly danced Agnes de Mille spoof with cowboys out to impress a solitary cowgirl. Coates and Neshyba-Hodges were absolutely outstanding.

It was Neshyba-Hodges alongside Dibble who both tirelessly led the troops in that technical marathon, “Surfer at the River Styx.”

All the choreography, except that for “The Fugue,” was handsomely styled in Tharp’s original amalgam of classic ballet and modern dance, and – as is true of anything by Tharp – beautifully performed.