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Eliot Feld’s on the Move--but Bypasses L.A.

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“It’s been 130 years since the Feld Ballet visited Los Angeles,” says its namesake and director in a fit of comic hyperbole. “In fact, I think of your city as the Diaspora,” he chuckles into the phone at his New York office.

Then the punch line: “When we celebrate Pesach (Passover), I always end the seder saying ‘Next year in Los Angeles,’ not ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ ”

But whatever humor-tinged invocation he gives, Eliot Feld is again bypassing the City of the Angels--racking up a fifth straight seasonal absence. However, his 15-year-old company is performing two different programs in San Diego in Symphony Hall Friday and Saturday, the last of a two-weekend run.

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Ever since 1985 when a West Coast tour fell apart before reaching UCLA, there have been no re-negotiations with the troupe--only a standing agreement that it play Royce Hall for a reduced fee while nearby. But with time slots filled on either side of the 10-day San Diego stint and no California bookings for next season, Angelenos will have to wait at least until ‘90-91 to take in Feld.

“A financial loss has yet to be resolved,” says Michael Blachly, assistant director of UCLA’s Center for the Performing Arts. “But we’re eager to return Feld to our stage.”

It was more than a quarter-century ago that the slight, dark-haired Feld landed a corps dancer’s contract at American Ballet Theatre. His first works for the company, “Harbinger” and “At Midnight,” sent critical hats flying into the air. Seemingly overnight he was hailed as the most important ballet choreographer in the land since Jerome Robbins.

And just as quickly he came to the realization that working for ABT would not be in his own best artistic interests, that indeed he was not an “organization man” content to make a simple, clean payment exchange: “They wanted to buy my things outright, but I wanted to be taken care of.” Thus, the Feld Ballet: a second attempt at running his own show. The first was the American Ballet Company, 1969-1971.

The whole point of the Feld Ballet, according to its founder, is “to have a place to choreograph.” While a Twyla Tharp might decide to chuck her independent operation and join forces with ABT, this ballet maker believes he can best serve his interests as a separate, though necessarily smaller, entity.

And he hasn’t done badly, considering the odds. With the purchase of the Joyce Theater in Manhattan, his company has a guaranteed platform; and with the establishment of a school, which currently enrolls 450 children from the New York public school system, he ensures his place on the training scene.

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Luckily for him, such movers and shakers as Joseph Papp rushed to subsidize his creative efforts. Also, the loyalty he inspires in the likes of Cora Cahan, who ably serves as the company’s executive director, frees him to pursue his “mandate”: choreography.

“The only thing I want to do,” he says, “is follow my own imperative, to make dances. It’s an internal need, not one based on whether the audiences or dancers want something new in the repertory. When I’m not putting together a ballet, I feel like a ne’er-do-well. And it’s the continuous working that allays the pressures of creating. Then it becomes a serious effort, not just a dalliance or a flirtation.”

A prolific dance maker, Feld boasts 60 ballets. “Each time is in and of itself, not to be judged against others,” he explains. “The only aesthetic goal I have is to engage my eye and mind and heart.”

Early on, when Feld lured such dancers as Christine Sarry and John Sowinski from ABT, word got out that he was an impossible tyrant in the studio. The die-hards stayed, but others fled. It took him a while to stabilize. Not every dancer was meant to work with the maverick choreographer.

“Why did they say those things about me?” he asks, repeating a question. “Probably because they sprang straight from reality. But a person is never just one way. If I’m caustic, it’s not purposeful. I don’t want to make life difficult for others. But being judgmental and candid is part of the process. I’m no harsher on anyone else than on myself.”

“And certainly I’m not out of control. Sometimes I don’t say what’s on my mind for the good of the dancers. I moderate my impulses and put aside my momentary frustrations.”

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Feld’s drive and tenacity, however, are behind the accomplishment that makes him unique. His is the only major one-choreographer ballet troupe in America, though even Feld supplements his repertory somewhat, with the occasional ballet by Glen Tetley and David Parsons.

But, essentially, he does it himself. The crux of his goal is “to stretch the horizons of ballet dancing, to redefine classicism according to a personal view, one with subject matter.” In this he follows the mode of Antony Tudor whose work “made a profound impression on me,” he says.

Like most other companies, including those with eight-digit budgets like ABT, his depends on touring for its survival.

“There are important virtues to road trips, besides solvency,” he says. “A sense of community and intimacy for the dancers that pays dividends on stage. A pride in proselytizing.”

“It’s all a continuous cycle, what we do--one based on hope. Inventing is an act of aspiration, although every time I read a review I grapple with cynicism. But the ability to delude oneself that things will be better is sustaining. This work is not understood--later it will be. This one didn’t change the world, but the next one will.

“Not really, of course, but we must believe it.”

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