ABRAHAM. ..."'=a J> c "' . SWLngy flingy little pants Cut on the bias, fiirty, swingy with capelet shoulders ... it's the little pants look that loves to slink after dark. APRIL-MAY 1971 I BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC I 3 Brooklyn Festival of Danc-e 1970-71 The Brooklyn Academy of Music in association with The American Dance Foundation presents Eliot Feld's American Ballet Company ANNA LAERKESEN* ELIZABETH LEE CHRISTINE SARRY ELIOT FELD JOHN SOWINSKI EDWARD VERSO Dana Arey Marilyn D'Honau M'Liss Gary Olga Janke Karen Kelly Christine Kono Sherry Lowenthal Cristina Stirling Eve Walstrum A. J. Brothers Tom Fowler Edward Henkel Kenneth Hughes Charles Kennedy Daniel Levins James Lewis David Loring Richard Munro Musical Director CHRISTOPHER KEENE Associate Conductor ISAIAH JACKSON Ballet Mistress BARBARA FALLIS ~' Courtesy of The Royal Danish Ballet The American Ballet Company is a resident company of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The 1970-71 Brooklyn Festival of Dance is made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. the New York State Council o n the Arts, the Kaplan Fund and individual donors. Baldwin is the official piano of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The unauthorized use of cameras or recording equipment is strictly prohibited during performances 4 I BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC I APRIL-MAY 1971 Th e Brooklyn Academy of Mu s 1c The S t. Felix Street Corpor a tio n Admin istra tive Staff Board of Directors: H arvey Lichtenstein, Directo r Seth S. Faison, Chairman Lewis L. Lloyd, General Manager Donald M. Bl inken, President C harles Hammock, Asst. General Manager Martin P . Carter Richard M. Hexter J ane Yockel , Comptroller Peter C. R. H uang Thomas Kerrigan, Assistant to the Director Gilbert Kaplan M ichele Goldman Brustin, Assistant to the Director Harvey Lichtenstein A nne Goodrich, Associate Press Representative Alan J. Patricof David Picker Linda F osburg, 1anager of Richard C. Sachs Audience and Community Development Robert Marinaccio, Administrative Assistant The St. Felix Street Corporation is responsible Betty Rosendorn, Administrator, Education Program for programming at the Brooklyn Academy of \1 u,ic. Sarah Walder, Education Program Mildred Levinson, Administrative Secretary Adele Allen, P ress Secretary The Acade my of Music Sylvia Rodin, Administrative A ssistant Gove rning Committee Frances M. Seiden burg, Financial Secretary Board of Directors: Evelyn August, Staff Assistant !V1 rs. George Liberman. Chairman Edward S. Reid, Vice-Chairman Ellen W . J acobs, Program Editor Hon. Alexander Aldrich Bernard S. Barr Foundation and Corporate Contributors Dr. William ,\1. Birenbaum John R. H. Blum Abraham and Straus Thomas A. Dor:nelly The Altman Foundation V\illiam B. Hewson Re-. W. G. Henson Jacobs Anon~mous Howard H. Jones CBS Foundation, Inc. \1ax L. Koeppel Doll Foundation .'v1sgr. Raymond S. Leonard The Ford Foundation .\1 rs. Constance J. 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Friends of the Brooklyn Academ y of Mu sic are people who Believe in the need for quality programs at low box office prices Offer ass istance to the educational services provided by the Academy Info rm the community of the variety of programs the Academy offers Help bridge the gap between costs and receipts $10 Contrib utor $25 Sponsor $100 Donor $15 Supporting Contributor $50 Patron $500 Benefactor Terry Middleton Eli:::.abeth Lee and Edll'ard Henkle in Eliot Feld's first ballet Harbinger There was only one sen ible reply to give. there was no mistaking Mr. Feld. And So I gave it. "Don't do it. Eliot. You will then he was a choreographer. never make it. " Eliot Feld, who was facing me across my living room, looked mildly After the event you can always imagine antagoni tic. " I've got to and I'm going to. that you were able to spot the dancer who There is no alternative." Feld does not would turn into a choreographer. I remem­ live in a world where alternatives happen ber John Cranko, alternately lunging and to have much of a place. lounging in the corps de ballet. always looking both shocked and intelligent. He He had telephoned me early that morn­ had to become a choreographer. ing, and a ked to come over on a matter of the utmost urgency. It was the spring I remember Maurice Bejart as a youngster of 1968. I had already heard rumors that with Mona Inglesby's International Ballet, Feld, the stormy petrel of American Ballet alert and responsive. or Kenneth MacMillan, Theatre, had finally stormily petrelled and an artistic, rather shy dancer who seemed walked out of the company in a blaze of to take up choreography almost in order iii-feeling and a haze of colorful language. to get off stage. Some future choreo­ "Yes," I said, ··come over." graphers, Dennis Nahat and John Clifford for example, betray themselves by their I hardly knew Feld. Since I had first very individual musical phrasing of other seen him he had always interested me as people's choreography. But Feld eemed so a performer. He was not really a classical absorbed with his actual dancing - that dancer, although his classical technique was self-surrounding intensity again - that his strong, or at least strongi h. As a dancer choreographic debut came as a surprise. I think he always had to be committed. He wa , for example, one of the worst Hilari­ The surprise arrived on May II, 1967 on I have ever een in Giselle. Come to at the New York State Theater, when think of it, he was one of the worst Hilari­ American Ballet Theatre premiered Har­ ons I have ever seen in any ballet. binger. It was an instant success. The main interest was its originality, its insistence Given the right role he could be wonder­ -rare perhaps in a young choreographer ful. Hi Billy in Billy the Kid, was an in­ --on dance as an end in itself. The work tense psychopathic killer from a poor home­ is staged to Prokofiev's Piano Concerto in life, while his Latin American sailor in G . Op. 55. and it was fascinating the way Fancy Free had a kind of effectively surly in which Feld interpreted the work's quirks wit and fantastic panache. There was great and tensions. eagerness to his dancing - and a lean and hungry look to it. lf, as Marie Rambert He seemed good. That December, at once asserted, all male dancers are either the City Center, Ballet Theatre produced Jambs or wolves in the way they dance. his second ballet At Midnight, set to Mah- young American choreographer to do a work in Winnipeg for the company. I suggested Feld. He invited Feld to do a ballet. Feld telephoned me and said! "What kind of company is this? Could they dance a ballet by me?" Could they? He pro­ duced Meadowlark and he later told them they couldn't dance it - but a lot of the mistakes had been his. The director of London's Festival Ballet, Beryl Grey, came to ew York, praying to engage Jerome Robbins (she didn't) and hoping to engage Gerald Arpino (she couldn't). I suggested Feld to her, and he went off to England to do another version of Meadowlark, which was better than the first, and decently but less than ecstatically received by the British dance audience. Feld was now past caring - he had gotten started on the company. Someone he had danced with in Pearl Lang' company, a man called Harvey Lichtenstein. was turning out to be Feld's saviour. Lichtenstein was giving Feld a company. ler songs that admirably confirmed his Lichtenstein had - suddenly and unex­ promise, and showed for the first time the pectedly. if he will pardon the adverbs - sympathy with Romantic music that was to been appointed Director of the Brooklyn become a characteristic of his work. Academy of Music and wa about to make Brooklyn famou for its Dance as well as Feld went on tour with American Ballet for its Bridge. Lichten tein saw Feld's work Theatre. and then the break suddenly came. for Ballet Theatre. he came up for the It \\-as a bad thing for Ballet Theatre. who premiere of Meadowlark in Winnipeg, he were basking in the pleasure of having dis­ held hi~ breath, counted up to 83, and said covered the first major American choreo­ yes. Feld was out and flying - he wa grapher since Jerome Robbins. And it going to be a resident company in Brooklyn. was hardly peaches and cream for Feld. who was unemployed. It seemed a stupid thing to do - particularly as Ballet Theatre wa prepared to give him everything he wanted as resident choreographer. apart from total control of the company. '·But that is precisely what I need," he told me, when he came over to talk.