Life and career

Feld was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Alice (née Posner), a travel agent, and Benjamin Noah Feld, an attorney. Feld attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York and studied at the School of American Ballet and the New Dance Group, as well as with Martha Graham, Richard Thomas, and Donald McKayle.

He performed as a child in George Balanchine's original production of The Nutcracker as the Nutcracker Prince; and later with the companies of Mary Anthony, Pearl Lang, and Sophie Maslow. At sixteen he appeared on Broadway in West Side Story and was cast as Baby John in the movie version of the musical; during the filming of "Cool" (one of the hardest dances in the film), Feld was sick with pneumonia.

Later, Feld joined American Ballet Theatre, leaving at age 25 to form his own company.

He appeared on television on The Garry Moore Show and The Ed Sullivan Show. His other Broadway credits include I Can Get It for You Wholesale and Fiddler on the Roof. Feld’s choreography also appeared in the revival of the Broadway musical On the Town (2001), performed in Central Park. In place of the company’s usual summer engagement at the Joyce Theater, Feld included several of his own dancers of the Ballet Tech company. A Yankee Doodle, his most recent ballet, premiered in New York on June 11, 2015. A Yankee Doodle was choreographed for 13 kids from the Ballet Tech school, to American fife & drum music.

Feld has choreographed 147 ballets since 1967, with his work being performed by the American Ballet Company, American Ballet Theatre, the Atlanta Ballet, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Ballet Tech, the Boston Ballet, Feld Ballets/NY, the Joffrey Ballet, the John Curry Skating Company, the Juilliard School, Kids Dance, the London Festival Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the New York City Ballet, the New York City Opera, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Richmond Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and the San Francisco Ballet, among others.

In the 1980s, with Cora Cahan, Feld founded the Joyce Theater. He was also instrumental in the creation of the Lawrence A. Wien Center for Dance & Theater at 890 Broadway in New York.

Feld's companies and schools

In 1967, at the age of twenty-five, Feld broke away from the American Ballet Theatre to form his own company, the American Ballet Company. Feld used his new company, later known simply as Feld Ballet, to explore a variety of dance genres.

In 1978, Feld began a ballet school, the New Ballet School. Feld believed that all children should have the opportunity to learn dance, regardless of their family income. In keeping with that philosophy, and in partnership with the New York City Board of Education, he auditioned more than 1,500 children at eight New York City public schools; almost 150 students were then enrolled, tuition-free, to a 17-week course at the New Ballet School. Additional dancers at the school were drawn from other troupes and academies. Since its 1978 founding, Feld's school has auditioned 827,655 New York City public school students, and provided classes for 20,976 children. In 1996 the school changed its name to the New York Public School for Dance.

In 1997, Feld merged his school and the Feld Ballet into Ballet Tech, providing a unified organization, and establishing a professional performing outlet for the school's graduates. Today, Ballet Tech’s activities include the tuition-free New York City Public School for Dance, and Kids Dance, a pre-professional children’s group.

Choreographic style

Feld uses aspects from ballet and modern dance and fuses them together in his work. "The down of one, the up of the other — both beauties attracted me, I think I've spent my choreographic life trying in some way to reconcile, cope, deal with these two elements." He claims to have always "loved the pointe shoe."

Feld's works are varied and contain anything from off-beat music to aerobic exercises, including somersaults, push-ups, sprints, leaps, and calisthenics. His choreography was inspired by Jewish material, along with the influence of one of his teachers, Martha Graham.

Awards

Feld has been honored with numerous awards, including the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1969), the Dance Magazine Award (1990), and an honorary doctorate degree from Juilliard (1991).

Further reading

• Percival, John. Modern Ballet. New York: Harmony Books, 1980.
• Chase's Calendar of Events 2007. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]