Doug Elkins: plunderer or new-age choreographer?

Dance Magazine, Jan, 1994 by Iris M. Fanger

The childhood activity that Elkins cherishes most was the keeping of endless journals. "My sketch journals basically have become my choregraphy," he says. When he graduated from high school, he enterd Parsons as a design major but remained there for only a year and a half before transfering to the State University of New York at Purchase.

There Elkins encountered studio dance for the first time. He numbers among his most influential teachers Mel Wong and Marcus Schulkind. "The first concert dance I saw was Marcus Schulkind performing his solo, Job. I thought it was real cool. I enjoy falling a lot, so watching Job fall was interesting to me," he says. He took technique classes with Schulkind and enrolled in Wong's class in experimental forms. "Mel's class was concerned with how one constructs something. It was open to anyone, regardless of training. Mel later told me he was always braced for what I would do," he recalls.

Elkins's entrance into dance classes coincided with his entry into the New York City clubs--" bouncing back and forth between Purchase and the world of the clubs," as he puts it. At the clubs he met the Rock Steady Crew, one of the first of the well-known break-dance groups, and dancers from the Magificent Force. They became his friends and dance partners, and by 1982 Elkins was performing with them. Two years later he was featured in the Levi's 501 ad for the 1984 Olmpics, and he toured China with American Break Company (ABC) three months also performed with choreographers Elizabeth Streb, Dany Ezralow, and Marta Renzi, and as an apprentice to Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane.

While at Purchase Elkins met two future members of his company, Allan M. Tibbetts and Jane Weiner, now his associate director. Company member David Neumann was an acting student at Purchase who also danced at the clubs. Elkins met Lisa Nicks while performing with Jody Oberfelder-Reiehm, and Lisa Heijn when he and Heijn were students at Harvard Summer Dance Center. Longtime company member Bob Bellamy has studied mime and clowing, Susan Moran was a later graduate of Purchase, and Ben Harris, the company's newest member, is a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts and a former member of the Jose Limon company.

The staying power of the company is one of its strenghts, although many of the members have outside interests. Neumann recently won wide recognition for his work with Jane Comfort. "Whatever resistance I have for dancers to work with others comes from my anxieties about separation," Elkins says. "I enjoy it when I dance with others and do other things. But I want first priority."

Elkins has a contemporary view of working together. "I do an end-of-month review. Everyone has a choice to be in it. I have my share of jealousies," he says. He has instituted a weekly forum to allow everybody to speak out about problems or issues, and every few months they work with a therapist who acts as a mediator. "For me, it's a mandatory part of the process," Elkins says. "It's just as important as the workshopping to develop new movement phrases. When I switched over from being best friend and choreographer to artistic director, I insisted on [the therapy sessions]. There's been resistance, power struggles. Some people really like it, some people get nervous about it, but they accept it as part of the company, especially for a long tour."