I knew very little about Felix Fibich when I worked with him in the Children’s Theatre production I mentioned in my last blog. It has been great fun to learn about him now and to realize that he is a good role model for me as I am nearing my 80th birthday! In fact, it was when he was 83 that he had national visibility.
Marsha Leon describes this beautifully in an article she wrote shortly after his death in 2014 at the age of 96.
But it was in 2001, with the widely aired sidesplitting Cingular TV commercial, that Fibich got national visibility. Looking like a bald leprechaun in a black body-fitting leotard, he attempts to teach a group of 300 lb. football players how to perform plies (elegant balletic squats) and entrechats (a balletic feat that involves twice crossing your legs at the ankle in mid-air). He exhorts these gravity-bound Sumo size athletes “to strut- trut-strut like a peacock” to “walk like a camel in the desert” and “sway like a Redwood tree.” https://forward.com/schmooze/195544/remembering-felix-fibich-yiddish-choreographer-dan/ [1]
And here’s the link to watch the actual commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28xAjbdiZCM [2]
But that is not all that Fibich accomplished in his 80’s. In an essay which was based on a February 1997 interviewconducted by Judith Brin Ingber for the Oral History Project, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, New York City), Ingber wrote:
In the 1990s, by then in his middle eighties, Fibich experienced a renaissance as both a dancer and choreographer. He performed a lead role in the musical Planet Lulu [directed by the Belgian Michel Laub]7 which toured extensively throughout Europe in 1998 and 1999; and because of his acting skills and facility with French, Yiddish, Polish and English he acted simultaneously in all those languages in the 1998 full length French feature film, XXL. His homecoming to Poland as a dancer/teacher at the famed Krakow Jewish Cultural Festival in July 1996 resulted in a Polish television special about him and requests for him to appear again in Poland. He has also taught for the last decade under the auspices of KlezKamp at their annual New York Yiddish Folk Arts Program, their master teacher for “Interpreting Jewish Dance,” as part of their “Living Tradition Meetings with Our Masters.” http://www.jbriningber.com/Fibich_Apr_18_07.pdf [3]
I highly recommend using the link to the full essay and interview if you are interested in learning more about Fibich!
To add to Judith’s article about things Fibich did in his 80’s, there were several other theatre performances, and appearances in Law and Order on television.
In learning about Fibich’s early life, several themes became apparent! He loved Jewish culture and Yiddish theatre, where he found ways to express himself. He also was consistently challenged by changes in the world happening around him, fleeing and escaping, often leaving everything behind!
He was born in 1917 in Warsaw, Poland. He began participating in theater in the 1930’s. He grew up with Polish as his main language, so in order to audition for the theater company he wanted to join, he learned Yiddish. It was in the theater company that he met Judith Berg, who was choreographing for the company and would later become his wife.
After Poland was invaded by the Germans, Mr. Fibich and his parents were sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1940, Mr. Fibich escaped and traveled to Soviet-controlled Bialystok. It was there he reconnected with Judith Berg who was working in a Yiddish revue. They toured with the troupe and were married before returning to Poland when the war was over. His parents died in the Holocaust.
Once back in Poland, Fibich and Berg developed a dance program for orphaned children, before fleeing again — this time to Paris in 1949 when the Communists took over Poland. A year later they came to America where they toured, taught and choreographed, becoming an important part of Yiddish Theater in the U.S. over the next several decades.
In Daniel Lewis’ book A Life in Choreography and the Art of Dance, Danny describes working with Felix beginning when he was in High School in 1961. He continued working for him until 1967, both in the actual Yiddish Theater on the Lower East Side and also in classical concert performances as part of the Fibich Dance Company. Danny relates how Felix always went to the High School of Performing Arts and Juilliard to find and recruit dancers. Danny goes on to say that Fibich had a huge effect on many young dancers and actors, giving them employment and a salary in the early part of their careers.
It is indeed fun to see how one thing can lead to another. An email letting me know that the National Dance Education Association was doing a panel discussion on Jewish contributions to dance in the United States led me to hear Danny Lewis speak about Felix Fibich. Not only did it bring back recollections of time spent in a Children’s Theatre production but it led me to do research about him. I have a lot of respect for how Fibich conducted his life, and he is now a role model for me, reminding me of all the possibilities in the coming years! Thank you, Danny, for your presentation and your book, and thank you Felix Fibich for your passion and determination!
