SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — Giving audiences a taste of something old and something new, the Twyla Tharp Dance Company will command the stage at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 30, at Kuss Auditorium, Clark State Performing Arts Center. This performance is the fourth event in the 2003-2004 Wittenberg Series calendar.

Led by two-time Emmy Award-winning choreographer Twyla Tharp, the dance company will perform “Westerly Round,” a playfully witty and charming abstracted square dance, along with “Surfer at the River Styx,” which reveals another dimension of Tharp’s infinite imagination and promises to be a dramatic, emotional ride from beginning to end.

The dance company will also perform a more comedic, romantic number titled “Known by the Heart Duet,” which takes the formal structure of the classical duet and mixes it up with witty, fierce, sometimes combative and always surprising relationships between the partners. This dance is an excerpt from a suite of dances originally commissioned by American Ballet Theatre in 1998.

Finally, audiences will experience Tharp’s characteristically exuberant blend of ballet and modern dance in “Mozart Clarinet Quintet K. 581.” This sun-filled dance is noted for shifting spatial patterns and daring off-center, off-balance partnering that explode into experimental lifts.

Tharp, who has created more than 125 dances and choreographed five Hollywood movies including “Hair,” “Ragtime” and “White Nights,” is considered one of America’s greatest choreographers. In addition to her Emmy Awards, she has also won the Director’s Guild of America award for Outstanding Director. Her autobiography, “Push Comes to Shove,” was published in 1992.

As with all events in the Wittenberg Series, admission is free. However, tickets are required for this performance and can be picked up from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, at Wittenberg’s Benham-Pence Student Center service desk, (937) 327-7443, or at the Kuss Auditorium Box Office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, (937) 328-3874.

To find out more about the Wittenberg Series, visit the university’s Web site (www.wittenberg.edu). To make special arrangements, reserve a series poster or become a friend of the Wittenberg Series, contact Series coordinator Gwendolyn Scheffel at (937) 327-7918, or via e-mail at gscheffel@wittenberg.edu.