Biography
Janet Eilber's role in Romantic Comedy (1983) follows her auspicious motion picture debut as the girlfriend of Richard Dreyfuss in MGM's "Whose LIfe Is It Anyway?" (1981)_, a powerful and witty drama adapted from Brian Clark's long-running Broadway and London stage hit. Although a newcomer to films, Janet has appeared on Broadway in the starring role in Bob Fosse's "Dancin'" and in the short-lived musical, "The Little Prince and the Aviator" opposite Michael York. Her first big break in television came when she landed the title role in a 1982 ABC-TV movie, This Is Kate Bennett... (1982) in which she portrayed an investigative reporter who stumbles onto a dangerous and explosive story. Her riveting performance was seen by Walter Mirisch, who then cast her in Romantic Comedy (1983). Eiber was born in Detroit Michigan, USA on July 27, 1951. She attended high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, before moving to New York to enroll in Manhattan's famous Juilliard School. In her junior year at Juilliard she joined the Martha Graham dance company, becoming a soloist at the age of twenty-one. After graduation, Janet became a regular member of the Martha Graham troupe and performed many of the roles originated by Martha Graham as well as parts especially choreographed for her by Ms. Graham. She danced opposite Rudolf Nureyev in "The Scarlet Letter" and "Lucifer" and was a soloist at the White House when President Jimmy Carter presented the Medal of Freedom to Martha Graham. After touring in the U.S., Europe and Asia with the Graham company in 1978, where she met "everyone from the Queen Mother to the King of Bangkok," Eilber joined the American Dance Machine under the direction of Lee Theodore. With this company, she was featured in "Steps in Time," a recreation of the classic duets in dance history, which reprised such famous numbers as "Won't You Charleston With Me" from "The Boy Friend," "Express Yourself" from "Flora the Red Menace," "You Can Dance With Any Girl at All" from "No No Nanette," "Little Me" from "I Got Your Number" and "Me and My Gal," as originally choreographed by Carol Haney. Janet Eilber has been the Artistic Director of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance since 2005. Her direction has focused on creating new forms of audience access to the Graham masterworks. Her direction has focused on creating new forms of audience access to the Graham masterworks. These initiatives include designing contextual programming, educational and community partnerships, use of new media, commissions and creative events such as the "Lamentation Variations" and "Prelude and Revolt." She has also remixed Graham choreography and created new staging in the Graham style for theater/dance productions of "The Bacchae" and "Prometheus Bound." She soloed at the White House, was partnered by Rudolf Nureyev, starred in three segments of "Dance in America," and has since taught, lectured and directed Graham ballets internationally. Eilber has performed in films, on television and on Broadway directed by such greats as Agnes deMille and Bob Fosse and has received four Lester Horton Awards for her reconstruction and performance of seminal American modern dance. She has served as Director of Arts Education for the Dana Foundation, guiding the Foundation's support for Teaching Artist training and contributing regularly to its arts education publications. Eilber is a Trustee Emeritus of Interlochen Center for the Arts. She is married to screenwriter/director John Warren, with whom she has two daughters, Madeline and Eva.
