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Biography
Dance is an art that uses the body as its instrument, and I feel that it has to be pushed to its limits.
Elisa Monte
Born Brooklyn, New York, 1949.
Elisa Monte made her professional debut at the age of eleven dancing with Agnes DeMille in City Center’s revival of Carousel. Following fifteen years as a professional dancer—eight as principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company—Monte founded her own company. Since the company’s inception, she has choreographed over thirty works performed by such companies as the Boston Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, San Francisco Ballet, Les Grands Ballet Canadiens, Philadanco, Batsheva Dance Company of Israel and others. Obviously influenced to a degree by her work with Graham and Lar Lubovitch, Monte’s signature style is highly athletic accented with passion, intensity and daring. In 1982 Monte’s work, Treading, was taken into the repertory of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and this was quickly followed by the commission of Pigs and Fishes for that company. Monte was among the first choreographers awarded a commission by the National Choreography Project.
Elisa Monte's Works
Pigs and Fishes
Premiere Date: 1982