Elie Lazar
Elie Lazar
Mr. Lazar’s career as principal dancer started with the New Jersey Ballet (USA), where dance critics and audiences followed and supported his talent in athletic ballets by Balanchine such as: Tarantella, Stars and Stripes, Allegro Brillante, Valse Fantaisie, Glinka Pas de Trois, Who Cares?, Sylvia, and Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux. Lazar was also known for his interpretation of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, Franz in Coppélia, Basilio in Don Quixote, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Slave in Le Corsaire, the Prince in The Nutcracker, and the Bluebird in Sleeping Beauty.
He founded and directed the company that represented the Joffrey Ballet School in NYC, the Joffrey Ensemble Dancers, from 1999–2005. He also founded Joffrey South in 2001, which was an extension of the summer school in Milledgeville, GA. Lazar later founded Ballet Lazar, a small professional ballet troupe to provide students from the Joffrey Ballet School with professional experience (2005). In 2007, he was invited to direct the Montgomery Ballet, and in 2011, to be part of the creative team to form the first dance department in Alabama (USA) to offer a BFA in Dance Education.
Today, Lazar teaches and sets works for the Joffrey Ballet School in NYC, serves as company teacher for the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, and provides workshops worldwide.
Lazar is happy to premiere his first work, Instar, for the Cisne Negro Dance Company in Brazil, and looks forward to continuing this wonderful collaboration.
