Regarded as a New York institution for decades, Eliot Feld trained at the School of American Ballet, the New Dance Group, and High School of Performing Arts, making his Broadway debut in West Side Story at age 16. He was a soloist with American Ballet Theatre, but left at age 25 to form his own group, known as American Ballet Company. After that company disbanded, he founded the Eliot Feld Ballet in 1974, which made its Jacob’s Pillow debut that same year. Along with colleague Cora Cahan, he founded New York’s Joyce Theater in 1982, and they were also instrumental in initiating the New York City dance facility known as 890 Broadway. This is where he founded the still-thriving school known as Ballet Tech, which has trained tens of thousands of public school children since the late 1970s. The performance seen here was billed as a preview, and the premiere was later hailed in The New York Times by Anna Kisselgoff, who wrote of these dancers, “Loose but disciplined, emphatic in their footwork but soaring high in many a ballet leap with a literal twist, they bring the rush of urban life into the theater.”
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