Elissa Fuchs
Elissa Fuchs started dance lessons in 1922 at age three in her native New Orleans. She began training in classical ballet at age seven, acting in children’s productions and on radio. At 16, with her mother as chaperone, she went from schoolgirl to chorus girl, touring with a vaudeville show headed by Michael Todd. Stints on Broadway followed, then with the Ballet Russe in Paris and Italy. She was ballet soloist with the Met where she met and married Peter Paul Fuchs in 1949. His conducting career took them back to New Orleans where she founded the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre.
They moved to Greensboro in 1976 when her husband was hired as music director for the Greensboro Symphony and later artistic director for Greensboro Opera. She became active in Greensboro Ballet and began teaching choreography again.
Today at 92, she continues teaching, seated erect, gesturing elegantly with her arms. She shows pleasure when she likes what she sees and frowns when she doesn’t. And she still occasionally performs, most recently in March as Madame Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at the Greensboro’s Open Space Cafe Theatre.