Dance

...He hit upon the solution of building his own theater...

...The repertory looks good in its new setting, which, one hopes, other companies will find as congenial a facility as does the Feld Ballet...

...In short, the Joyce Theater-like previously constructed dance theaters-has been shaped by a personal vision...

...During the season Edmond LaFosse was very effective in "Dan-zon Cubano" as was Cheryl Jones in "Half Time...

...Artistically this makes sense-a live orchestra enhances performance quality tremendously...

...The stock commedia del'arte figures are a difficult challenge, but Feld puts them through their paces with masterly efficiency...

...In the middle 1970s, touring was still possible despite the enhanced costs of travel and accommodations triggered by the oil embargo...

...The three-hundred-seat Newman was a considerable distance from the over two-thousand seat Brooklyn Academy opera house...

...In the thirties, Ted Shawn acquired a farm and out-buildings in Becket, Massachusetts, and he and his company members did the actual renovations themselves to create Jacob's Pillow...

...While worrying through the development of the theater, Feld has also continued making new ballets for his company's repertory...

...Feld became the fourth...

...Dramatically, it has moments...

...DON McDONAGH...

...Eliot Feld, the company's artistic director and chief choreographer, created his first ballet,' 'Harbinger,'' a decade and a half ago for American Ballet theater, with whom he was associated as a dancer...

...and with first call on the performing times, Feld is in a position to present his ballets exactly as he wishes them to be seen, at a reasonable cost, and whenever it suits him...

...one that was large enough to have a healthy weekly gross and yet not too expensive to run...

...The earliest pieces included were "Harbinger" and "At Midnight...

...Now Feld and his administrative right hand Cora Cahan, solicited public and private funds and, most imaginatively, an urban development grant...

...but then Feld had begun to restructure his creative thinking...

...Scenes" partakes of some of the same atmosphere as it depicts a thirties' parade of incidents which transpire beneath elevated train tracks...

...But it also is a financial millstone for all but the most established companies...

...overall, it never quite unites forcefully...

...Nelson Rockefeller, then governor of New York, commissioned Phillip Johnson, a friend and admirer of Balanchine's, to design New York State Theater as part of the developing Lincoln Center complex...

...It brought to mind the Storeyville district portrayed so vividly in Louis Malle's Pretty Baby...

...Disagreement over the artistic direction of the company caused Feld to leave, and in two years he had formed his own company, known as the American Ballet Company, performing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and touring nationally as well as internationally...

...He has a house with 475 seats raked so that all offer an unrestricted view of the stage...

...Technically, the company has moved from the ballet orientation that governed its early years to a ballet company at ease with pieces styled in the flexed-foot, live-torso manner of modern dance...

...The latter was the final piece of the financial package which a momentarily benign administration allowed to pass after all such grants had been otherwise halted...

...Gianfranco Paoluzi was the betrayed Pierrot and Traci Owens a vixenish Columbina...

...What is it, exactly, that Feld has wrought in converting the old 1941 Elgin movie house into the "high tech" Joyce Theater with its art-deco trim...

...The accompaniment was a selection of ragtime music played at excruciatingly slow tempos and poured like aural treacle over the women who were being blatantly or coyly alluring...

...The Joyce and the Feld Ballet are inextricably bound together...

...Dance DOLLARS & DANCE FELD BALLET'S JOYCE THEATER THE baleful glare of Reganomics softened for a moment a year ago just long enough to thaw frozen federal funds allocated for an urban development grant...

...In the latter the principal roles were expressively danced by Megan Murphy, Gloria Brisbin, Richard Fein, and Timothy Cronin...

...It was fatal to the American Ballet Company, which was forced to disband after three years during which Feld had created a dozen ballets...

...In this century only three dancer-choreographers had managed to do so-Ted Shawn, Lester Horton, and George Balanchine...

...The combination proved to be elusive...

...It is a small miracle of persistence and luck that it exists at all...

...Among the most successful of the new works was "Play Bach," which poses athletically ingenious partnering problems for ten women and five men...

...The lack of an orchestra pit precludes live music except for that provided by a small ensemble like a string quartet or solo instrumentalists...

...It was good to see a revival of "Theater" though one missed Jennifer Tipton's superb lighting design which first enhanced it in 1971...

...Scruffy kids play, a dog cavorts, a man out of work scans the help wanted columns, and a rich couple wheel a perambulator...

...Both reflect the economic pressures in today's theatrical world...

...With a swipe of the wrecker's ball this spring, three theaters on Broadway vanished, the Bijou, the Helen Hayes, and the Morosco...

...An opera house was too large and a three-hundred-seat theater was too small...

...Far from playful was "Over The Pavement," a dance for seven men set to selections of astringent Charles Ives music, including the selection which gives the dance its title...

...A stage the size of a good large house has been fashioned, rehearsal and dressing room facilities are located beneath the auditorium, and a sound system that still needs some adjusting is in place...

...For this reason, the problem shifted to selecting a suitable facility...

...They "hang out" aggressively and are obviously destined for a short, brutal existence devoid of tenderness...

...A policeman keeps order, and there are hints of romance and even burlesque comedy as the scenes succeed one another like a flickering silent film...

...The spirit is that of genuine play...

...the company desperately needed the new theater, and die theater exists because of the ballet company's need...

...The result was that this summer the new Joyce Theater opened its doors for the first New York season the Feld Ballet has had in four years...

...Anatomic Balm" is another play on words as the soothing anatomical display of eleven slinky women acquires an explosive impact...

...The intimacy of the house provides the correct viewing distance for Feld's own ballets and they look marvelous in the setting...

...As artistic director, Feld insisted upon having a live orchestra...

...The lack of contracted musicians helps keep the week-by-week cost down...

...After bringing his company to the verge of bankruptcy trying to find the right theater, Feld decided that there had to be another solution for the middle-sized company such as his...

...He quickly followed'with "At Midnight," a work that was as warmly received as had been "Harbinger...

...The Joyce cuts the net loss to two...

...Intimacy of detail rather than amplitude of choreographic pattern became his chief concern...

...The company is a strong one and dances with a real ensemble feeling...

...The men are down-and-outers although they aren't old enough to know it yet...

...As these costs grew, touring became less and less a profitable way for a company to derive revenue, and companies gave more and more thought to playing extended seasons in their home cities...

...Lester Horton converted a small downtown theater in Los Angeles in 1948 with much donated help...

...With the assistance of Joseph Papp, a reconstituted Eliot Feld Ballet, without live music, became resident dance company in the intimate Newman Theater...

...It is a visual feast of the extremities as legs and arms cross, pump, thrust, and entwine...