Coastal Post Online
MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS
MONTHLY - FREE PRESS
(415)868-1600 -
(415)868-0502(fax) - P.O. Box 31, Bolinas, CA, 94924
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Robin Jane Feld
Robin Feld, age
55, teacher, dancer and musician, died at home in Bolinas on Monday, December 20, 2004 following a courageous battle with
cancer. For the last 14 years Robin directed the music program at Full Circle, a residential treatment center for
troubled teenage boys located in Bolinas. She founded the music program, was
instrumental in its growth and its continuing success.
She was born October
2, 1949 in the town of
New Rochelle, NY to Betty Lipinsky Feld and the late Edward Henry Feld. She grew up in
the beautiful town of Asheville, NC where she graduated from Lee Edwards High School in 1967.
Robin attended the University of Georgia and then decided to enter the world of the performing arts.
First she quietly converted the Twelfth Gate in Atlanta, GA from a Christian coffee house into
a national concert club where musicians like Oregon, Little Feat, Wet Willie, Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner could
perform before an intimate, live audience. This is where she met her husband,
Paul McCandless, the Grammy winning jazz musician and composer.
Following her passion for dance, Robin studied contact improvisation with
Steve Paxton and Nancy Stark Smith and ballet at the Collette Barry-Susan Klein
School of Dance. Robin and Paul moved to New York City in 1976 where Robin started her internationally renowned
career as a professional dancer and teacher in contact improvisation. Robin
taught and performed contact improvisation at her own studio in New York City and in Europe. Her choreography was presented at
the Dance Theatre Workshop and St. Marks
Church in New York; at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado as well as several locations in Europe. She was a member of the Nina
Martin Dance Company (1980-82) and the Julie West Dance Foundation (1983-85).
For 20 years she traveled every summer to Bern,
Switzerland to teach contact improvisation;
many international dancers cite her as their formative teacher.
Robin is survived by her husband Paul, her mother Betty Feld and her brother
Tom Feld of Asheville, NC; her mother and brother now reside in Thousand Oaks, CA. Robin is also survived by Tom's
wife Peggy Feld and their two daughters Melissa Feld of Hollywood Hills, CA and Jamie Feld of Westwood Village,
CA.
A memorial service will be held in January 2005 at the Commonweal in Bolinas, CA; hundreds of friends will be there to celebrate the special person she
was.
In lieu of flowers, memorial funds have been established in her name for the
Hospice of Marin (CA).
We would like to thank the many friends, some traveling from the East Coast,
for their support and loving care in Robin's final days.