Twyla Tharp opens by examining how sustaining a genuinely long, creative career requires deliberate adaptation across different life stages, drawing on her own extensive career as a choreographer navigating changing physical capability and artistic circumstances over decades.

Why this deliberate adaptation matters for sustained creative careers:

• Many creative careers falter when practitioners fail to deliberately adapt their approach as physical capability, circumstances, and artistic context change over an extended career
• Tharp's own extensive career, spanning many decades of continued creative output despite significant physical and circumstantial change, provides credible grounding for this adaptation-focused framework
• This opening establishes the book's central thesis, motivating its subsequent detailed guidance for navigating creative career longevity

This opening establishes the book's foundational thesis regarding deliberate adaptation as necessary for sustained creative career longevity, illustrated through Tharp's own extensive choreography career.