Word: feld
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Brooding before a video-tape machine, a cigarette drooping from his mouth, Eliot Feld was working and reworking the choreography of his 1972 ballet of Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale. Two dancers stood by. Finally, Feld snapped off the TV and nodded to the pianist. Spinning out a series of steps, he recited, "Passé, chassé, saut de basque, heel, toe." On the next run-through, he renamed the steps: "Strength, will, talent, musicality, perseverance, time...
...Feld has built a career on those six nouns. His dance company's current Manhattan season is S.R.O. and has been extended. At 33, with 22 ballets to his credit, Feld has entered the golden circle of U.S. classical choreographers. Only George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins stand ahead...
Extravagant Bluster. For a time, however, it looked as if Feld could think only with his feet. A year after his triumph he left ABT with extravagant bluster. Said he: "They wouldn't make me director of the company, they wouldn't give me the whole company to do with what I like." That outburst was enough to make critics write off Feld with a hauteur that resembled his own. Unrepentant, he set up shop as the American Ballet Company, but ran out of money within two years. He had just about decided to give up choreography when...
With reasonable security, he has worked on building his repertory selectively. This fall's new works, Excursions, a lusty frontier-style piece, and Mazurka, to Chopin's music, are his most popular premieres since his 1969 ballroom ballet, Intermezzo. Mazurka is technically ferocious. But, says Feld, "with its angular line and hot and cold jazz rhythms, the ballet is like caviar...
Concealed virtuosity is a Feld hallmark. To the ordinary eye, double turns tucked into simple curves of movement spring up casually from the current of music. Girls rarely hurtle through the air, rather they float by like Chagall figures. Then, in a sudden mid-air reverse, they switch directions altogether...