The Creative Habit is a mix of advice, memoir, and philosophy for all kinds of artists. Tharp draws on her own experience to address such creative issues as getting started, maintaining a routine, and dealing with failure.

Many of the problems of creativity are attacked with physical exercises, such as one ("do a verb") for when you are at a loss for ideas. These exercises, the author feels, are not only good for dancers. "The chemistry of the body," she writes, "is inseparable from the chemistry of the brain."

Tharp has choreographed more than 125 works for her own company, and for American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, movies (such as Amadeus and Hair) and Broadway shows: including the recent Movin' Out, set to a score of songs by Billy Joel.

She first gained visibility in New York in 1970 with The Fugue, a dance for three women with no music except the thump of feet on the floor. She became more widely known in the 1970s and '80s for work that took movement from ballet, modern, tap, jazz, and folk-dance forms, and for choreographing works to popular music.

Tickets for the event, which starts at 7 p.m., are $18, and can be bought at www.symphonyspace.org.