Eliot Feld's KIDS DANCE, 40 whizkids aged 11 to 18, returns to the Joyce for six performances, including the premieres of Feld's Pointing 2 and Pointing 3, three of Feld's masterworks: The Jig is Up, Meshugana Dance, and Apple Pie, and a repeat of last season's It's the Effort That Counts, with choreography by Stephanie Terasaki, Conner Bormann and Riley O'Flynn, all graduates of Juilliard. June 7-10 at The Joyce Theater.
Feld continues his "Pointing" series - dances for the female dancers en pointe - with the premieres of Pointing 2 and Pointing 3.
The Company will bring back one of Feld's classics: Meshugana Dance, set to Klezmer music, and described by Clive Barnes as "delightfully wacky" (Ballett 2000) In her recent New York Times feature article, Helene Stapinski observed a Kids Dance rehearsal of the ballet, watching the young dancers trying to master a series of energetic leaps across the space. "By the end of the number," she noted, "all 12 boys and 11 girls were jete-ing across the studio like baby gazelles, seemingly pausing in midair and hovering just for a second as if weightless." (The New York TImes, April 18, 2018).
Another timeless Feld work is the 1984 The Jig Is Up, set to the celtic sounds of The Bothy Band and John Cunningham, with costumes by Michael Krass. The work has been in the repertories of numerous companies, and was most recently staged by Feld, Patrice Hemsworth, and Jacqulyn Scafidi for the Juilliard dancers.
According to Robert Greskovic, the dance was "as classic, sweet and tart as its namesake," adding that "Mr. Feld's own distinctive lighting here was cast onto a cyclorama, hung in place as if it were an expansive cowhide stretched for tanning." (The Wall Street Journal, June 17, 2014)
Feld's commitment to presenting dances created especially for young dancers saw the premiere last year of It's the Effort That Counts, created by Stephanie Terasaki, Conner Bormann, and Riley O'Flynn, all graduates of Juilliard. The trio's music choice? A ticking metronome.
Mr. Feld danced with American Ballet Theatre, the American Ballet Company and Feld Ballets/NY. He has choreographed ballets since 1967 for his own company as well as for American Ballet Theatre, Royal Danish Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Royal Swedish Ballet, Boston Ballet, London Festival Ballet, New York City Ballet, and more.
Feld founded his Ballet Tech, known then as the Eliot Feld Ballet, in 1974. Three years later, sharing a crowded subway car teeming with exuberant school children, he had an aha! moment, and was struck by the realization that countless NYC school children had an inborn gift for dance but little or no opportunity to receive training. Pursuing this visionary idea, in 1978 he established Ballet Tech, his tuition-free ballet school, located at 890 Broadway.The Ballet Tech School integrates intensive dance training with a full academic curriculum for approximately 175 students in grades 4-12, in partnership with the NYC Department of Education. As stated by Feld in a 2013 interview with Gia Kourlas for The New York Times: "Ballet is not for a class of people - it's for everybody with talent."
A few current facts about Ballet Tech:Videos