An extended suite of witty, playful and/or plaintive ragtime numbers finds
multi-colored counterpart in dancing that shakes, shimmies and rolls on
through the circuit of rightly popular music. The inspiration of the work
came from the extra-popular rag called "The Entertainer," which in this
case, inspired a "stripper" solo, originally for Tharp herself, at once
introspective and brazenly "in your face." As Tharp did with her
Haydn/Beiderbecke combination for the preceding The Bix Pieces, The Raggedy
Dances mates two different kinds of music, this time Mozart with Joplin. The
gentleness and simplicity of the latter, pre-jazz American aptly mirrors the
like-mood of the earlier, European classicist. Crossovers for individual
dancers seemingly "in their own worlds," various and sometimes simultaneous
duets, as well as a series of false entrances give the flow and traffic of
the dances a zany and piquant cheek. The coda to the whole witty affair of
many moods, comes in the form of a somewhat competitive duet, zeroing in on
Mozart's K. 265 variations, popularly known as "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or
"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."