Carmen & Geoffrey
Directed by Linda Atkinson & Nick Doob
Quad Cinema Mar. 13-18
Runtime: 79 min.
You may have spotted them at theater opening nights or in the audience during Alvin Ailey’s City Center seasons—a tall, glamorous couple, the epitome of elegance and style. Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder have both had multi-faceted, influential careers in the performing arts and demonstrated amazing longevity, with contributions dating back to the 1950s.
That is when they met, she a long-limbed modern dancer, newly arrived in New York from Los Angeles, he a painter/dancer/designer from Trinidad. They were cast as featured dancers in the 1954 musical House of Flowers along with another not-so-shabby dancer named Alvin Ailey. Early in Carmen & Geoffrey, Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob’s charming, big-hearted documentary about their personal and professional lives, Holder recalls his first glimpse of the stunning De Lavallade, with “a face to die over,” and how he proposed to her four days later.
De Lavallade was responsible for getting Ailey, her high school classmate, to the dance studio of Lester Horton, the influential choreographer with whom she was studying. Both became dancers in his company, and forged careers in New York after Horton died in 1953. She danced in Ailey’s company during its early years; one of the invaluable segments of dance footage included in this documentary identifies the company as the “De Lavallade-Ailey American Dance Theater,” and shows the duo performing the “Wade in the Water” section of Ailey’s classic Revelations with an earthiness and focused serenity one does not see today.
Holder was no slouch as a dancer either, as some eye-popping pieces of footage included here demonstrate. Impossibly tall and innately sensual—and often wearing skimpy costumes—he channeled the fluidity and pelvis-driven energy of the Trinidadian dance he knew with the sweeping power of modern dance. But Holder has never been someone who fits neatly into categories, and the film amply illustrates the scope of his talents. Judith Jamison is not exaggerating when she calls Holder a “renaissance man.” Indeed, he is the contemporary embodiment of that term.
His paintings, lush and intensely sensual (he revels in the female form in all its curvaceous glory) are filled with color and throb with life-affirming energy. His costume designs are seen in excerpts from his dances that draw on the native religions that were repressed in the “Anglicized” Christian Trinidad in which he was raised. On Broadway, he wore multiple hats (and won multiple awards) as director, choreographer and costume designer of The Wiz and other shows. One of the film’s most charming moments shows Holder, resplendent in a white suit, dancing his way onto the stage to accept his Tony Award from Ray Bolger, who joins in the dance.
As the film’s many performance clips reveal, De Lavallade is a dancer of serene beauty and exquisite control, but one who can also embody passion and desperation. She is seen in one of her signature works, John Butler’s 1961 Portrait of Billie, which chronicles the rise and fall of Billie Holiday, and in her own luminous solo, Sweet Bitter Love. The term “aging gracefully” does not do justice to this unique woman, whose radiance and expressiveness defy the decades—and who is also an accomplished actress. There is ample footage of her current troupe, Paradigm, in which she dances with two other celebrated elder statesmen of dance, Gus Solomons and Dudley Williams.
Other rare and invaluable dance footage in the film includes the couple performing a sleek duet while Josephine Baker sings, and various examples of the intense sensuality and power of the Ailey-De Lavallade partnership.
Holder’s wit, charm and childlike sense of playfulness come through every frame that he is in, setting up a perfect contrast with De Lavallade’s more grounded directness. Carmen & Geoffrey is a portrait and celebration of a marriage as well as a chronicle of two ongoing, vibrant careers in the arts. The affection and deep mutual respect between these two partners of five decades is always evident. The film’s structure—introducing them as a pair, then alternating between his-and-her career highlights—seems representative of their union. Each of them found professional achievement, sometimes on their own, sometimes together, but each was always offering ready support and admiration for the other.
