Eliot Feld

Eliot Feld (born July 5, 1942, New York City, New York, U.S.) is an American dancer, choreographer, and director. He choreographed a number of successful dances while in the corps of American Ballet Theatre, New York, and later cofounded Ballet Tech, a thriving institution providing dance instruction to New York City public school students.

Feld began his classical training at the School of American Ballet and danced the role of the Little Prince in New York City Ballet’s The Nutcracker in 1954. He studied modern dance at the High School for the Performing Arts and with Donald McKayle and Pearl Lang.

Feld performed in the original stage and film versions of West Side Story, after which he studied ballet with Richard Thomas. He was accepted into the corps of American Ballet Theatre (1963) and began to choreograph. His first work, Harbinger (1963), was a success. In 1968 Feld left American Ballet Theatre to form his own group, the American Ballet Company, which lasted three years. It was re-formed as the Eliot Feld Ballet in 1973 and thereafter was a company of international repute until it disbanded in 2003. Among Feld’s most popular works are At Midnight (1967), Intermezzo (1969), Jive (1973), Mazurka (1975), and Papillon (1979). His later choreography included Echo (1986), Paper Tiger (1996), and Mr. XYZ (2003), which was created for Mikhail Baryshnikov.

In 1978 Feld cofounded the New York City Public School for Dance (later called Ballet Tech) to provide dance instruction to students in the city’s public school system. A huge success, it eventually expanded to include academic instruction. The students stage a number of performances during the year, often appearing in works created by Feld, including Dotty Polkas (2008), Upside Dance (2013), Pointing 1 (2017), Pointing 2 (2018), and Pointing 3 (2018). Feld also cofounded the Joyce Theater (1982) and the Lawrence A. Wien Center for Dance and Theatre (1986), New York. In 2021 he stepped down as artistic director and president of Ballet Tech.