His father - James "Tawney" Forbes of Haitian/French ancestry - was captain of a cargo ship which while near Colón, Panama during World War II was torpedoed by the Germans.
[1] Pomare founded a dance company in 1958, but dismantled it to travel to Europe to study and perform with Kurt Jooss and Harold Kreutzberg[2] in Essen, Germany, on a John Hay Whitney scholarship.
After leaving the Jooss school, he re-established the Eleo Pomare Dance Company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and became popular in Europe.
Other productions in the 1960s included Missa Luba in 1965 and Las Desenamoradas in 1967 (based on Federico García Lorca's play The House of Bernarda Alba set to "Olé" by John Coltrane).
[7] Pomare came to the attention of Aboriginal Australian activists after refusing to perform at Chequers Theatre,[8] situated in the suburb of Nailsworth, north of Adelaide city centre.
[8] Pomare upset the box office manager by giving his allocation of orchestra seats away to some Aboriginal people who wanted to see the performance but had not been able to get tickets.
The company performed Blues for the Jungle on this tour, which, according to Johnson, "really excited the blacks who saw for the first time how the contemporary arts could be used to convey relevant social messages".
[9] The company also toured North America, Europe, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa, performing in Lagos, Nigeria, for FESTAC '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture.
[1] A November 1983 performance by Leni Wylliams as "Profit Jones" in Radiance of the Dark during the company's 25th anniversary season was reported in a New York Times review as being "show stopping".
[12] Dancer and choreographer Martial Roumain, who joined the company as a teenager, was responsible for preserving Pomare's work and for future performances of it.
[16] Johnson's work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dancers in Australia, helping to create NAISDA's forerunner in 1975, and subsequent formation of Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1989, carried on Pomare's legacy.