Carmen de Lavallade: Remembering it her way

Carmen de Lavallade in As I Remember It (photo: Stephanie Berger)

Carmen de Lavallade's solo, As I Remember It, seems to rip by in a flash, faster than its by-the-clock hour length. Premiered last June at Jacob's Pillow, now presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center, it's less a comprehensive tale of a life unfolding at the epicenter of American entertainment than a gesture towards that history and its dazzling characters--Lester Horton, Pearl Bailey, Harry Belafonte, Alvin Ailey, Jack Cole, Duke Ellington and de Lavallade's late husband, the multi-talented Geoffrey Holder, among so many more. And, of course, as a de Lavallade gesture--direct, shaped with elegance and efficiency--it doesn't need much embellishment. Everything in this production, from set to video to text, works by light touch.

The title tells us two things. First, these are de Lavallade's remembrances of her six-decade-plus career in dance, theater and film; others, she knows, might recall people and events differently. Second, we can expect a little tongue twisting and a few--very few--memory slips along the way. At 83, though, de Lavallade commands better alignment and lively, playful dexterity of body and mind than a lot of folks many years younger.

The memories, brief as snapshots, come with sensory sharpness: a hardworking father's hands, one rough, one smooth; a mother often sitting and staring; the sinuous coils of smoke from ballet teacher Carmelita Maracci's cigarette. Maracci, impatient, would upbraid de Lavallade: "Carmen, talk to your feet! What are they saying to you?" Carmen: "Help!"

In her dance of story, de Lavallade lights but never lingers. She keeps it moving, even when she speaks of racism. Particularly when she speaks of racism. Of being selected to study with LA dance master and choreographer Lester Horton, she says, "In those days, there were only some people who would take you if you were colored. And the white girls would walk out of class." If Hollywood is Hollyweird (as a sign says), we're not privy to a lot of the gritty details of what makes it so. I suspect de Lavallade is one of those sisters--I see them all around me today--who survive and thrive by keeping positive-mind phasers set to stun. I must study this.

Go see As I Remember It and marvel at how good the young de Lavallade looked in any setting, how thoroughly self-possessed. Time has diminished absolutely nothing of that.

Collaborators:

Joe Grifasi (director)
Talvin Wilks (co-writer/dramaturg)
James F. Ingalls (lighting design)
Maya Ciarrocchi (video design)
Mimi Lien (set design)
Christopher J. Bailey (sound design)
Esther Arroyo (costume design)
Jane Ira Bloom (music)

As I Remember It continues: February 20-21 and 24 at 8pm as well as a February 25 at 1pm (with a moderated conversation with de Lavallade).

When advance tickets are no longer available, a wait list will begin at the Box Office one hour prior to show time on the day of the performance. In the event of last minute cancellations, seats may be released and sold to those on the wait list on a first-come, first-served basis.

Jerome Robbins Theater
Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

For Carmen de Lavallade, the dance goes on

Carmen de Lavallade Still Captivates Onstage at 83
by Danielle C. Belton, The Root, October 30, 2014

Congratulations to Camille A. Brown

Big news today for New York choreographer Camille A. Brown. Brown has been hired for the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Emily Mann, scored by Terence Blanchard and starring Blair Underwood (Stanley), Nicole Ari Parker (Blanche), Wood Harris (Mitch), Daphne Rubin-Vega (Stella), and Carmen de Lavallade, opening on April 3 at The Broadhurst Theater. A Streetcar Named Desire is scheduled to run for 16 weeks only. For more information and ticketing, click here.

BAC FLicks screens Lidberg's "Labyrinth Within"

Trailer for Pontus Lidberg's Labyrinth Within (2010, Sweden, 28.5 min.)

Jury Prize for Best Picture, Dance on Camera Festival 2012, New York

Labyrinth Within--screened this week at Baryshnikov Arts Center--opens with a horizontally compressed view of a dizzying swirl of bare torsos belonging, provocatively, to the film's male performers. They are director/choreographer Pontus Lidberg, a remarkably lithe dancer, and the brooding Giovanni Bucchieri, who also played a similarly sensual role in Lidberg's award-winning film, The Rain (2006).

After your half-hour with Labyrinth Within, you might walk away uncertain of what you just saw. (Who's who? What's what? What's with that mask you see for a split second?) But asking this film to deliver straight answers is like asking a dream to get out of bed and make you bacon and eggs. That's not its job. Lidberg's project, co-written with dramaturg Niklas Holmgren, deals with mystery--change itself--as a permanent reality.

Labyrinth Within's layers slip through your awareness through multiple pathways--dramatic lighting and suspenseful camerawork; Bucchieri's brooding melancholy; rapturous, expressionistic duets between Lidberg and his female muse, the versatile NYCB principal Wendy Whelan, and the tension-building power of David Lang's original and arranged music. Place matters, too. The work--developed in residencies at BAC and Joyce SoHo but mostly filmed within the muted, under-furnished interior of a Stockholm apartment--turns upon evocative architectural as well as psychological space. In the discussion that followed BAC's screening, Lidberg, quite rightly, volunteered few revelations about his beautiful film but did dangle this tidbit: "I had a very eccentric father and grew up in an apartment with things like secret doors."

Upcoming at BAC Flicks: Carmen & Geoffrey (2005), a documentary on the lives and careers of Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder by filmmakers Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob. The screening will be followed by a discussion with de Lavallade. Tuesday, April 24, 7pm. For further information and ticketing, click here.

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(map and directions)

Camille A. Brown at The Joyce

Camille A. Brown (Photo by Matt Karas)

If you think you've seen all Camille A. Brown has to offer, take a trip over to The Joyce Theater this weekend, and you will discover or rediscover:

• City of Rain: I had never seen this ensemble piece, premiered in 2010. It's a good look at how Brown, popular for her character-driven dances, can work an abstract concept over space, flooding her stage with the physical turbulence of an octet of continuously winding, unfurling bodies. Mora-Amina Parker, an imposing performer, is particularly effective and impressive here.

• The Evolution of A Secured Feminine: Sure you've seen this solo a million times, on and off Brown's body. But you haven't seen it the way Brown has reclaimed it in this season. Of course, it has her signature quirky timing and seamlessness, but she's dancing it even stronger these days, filling it out even more and owning it. A good thing getting better. Worth a new look.

• Mr. TOL E. RAncE: Part 1: The program notes quote Langston Hughes' reference to humor as "unconscious therapy." Brown's performers genuinely dance the hell out of this one, which is ironic since it depicts Black minstrels dancing the hell out of stuff with smiles frozen on their faces and modern-day TV dance show contestants dancing the hell out of stuff, all while a brazen MC pours on the inflammatory racial stereotyping. Same shit, different day. I should also mention Isabela Dos Santos' animation in which, through a series of unfortunate events, a hapless guy loses one body part after another until he is, finally, only a head kicked away by a soccer player. So pretty caustic humor, if humor it is, and I can't say I find it terribly therapeutic. At first, I wasn't sure what, if anything, Brown wanted us to feel, if not horror. But Brown's concluding solo, set to a melancholy piano version of "What A Wonderful World," seemed to bring it all back to the unpredictable condition of the performer, then as now. It's also simply another good chance to see what makes Brown a stunning, affecting soloist.

• The Creation: Plus 40: Yes, be there. It's Carmen de Lavallade. She dances a re-imagination of her husband Geoffrey Holder's 1972 piece, narrating and embodying the creation of the universe by a lonely god and the development of a human figure from feeble to regal. A convincing and captivating storyteller.

• Been There, Done That: The marvelously loosey-goosey Juel D. Lane and Brown romp around as a couple of performers competing with one another for the limelight and the audience's love. Fun and just short enough to not wear out its welcome.

• The Groove to Nobody's Business: Seen this nutty one lots of times, too? See it again. Everyone's wonderful in it.

Camille A. Brown at The Joyce Theater -- Today, 2pm and Sunday, 7:30pm (tickets)

The Joyce Theater

8th Avenue and 19th Street, Manhattan

(directions)

Dances for an iPhone

Richard Daniels - Dances for an iPhone

Dances for an iPhone, created, choreographed and produced by Richard Daniels, offers an innovative way to look at and disseminate dance on camera. Mr. Daniels brings modern dance to a wider audience in this App for iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches while simultaneously creating a new category of Apps with purely cultural content.

The current dances, roughly three to five minutes in length, feature performances by Carmen de Lavallade, Deborah Jowitt, Margie Gillis, Risa Steinberg, Christine Wright and more.

For more information on this free iOS app, click here.

Shift that PARADIGM

Gus Solomons Jr. dancer / choreographer / writer / actor / PARADIGM - shifter
by Jennifer Edwards, The Huffington Post, January 12, 2011

Those five fly ladies return

Remember FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance, with solos made and performed by Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Germaine Acogny, Carmen de Lavallade and Bebe Miller?

Well, if you didn't happen to catch these stellar performers last year at LIU's Kumble Theater (where I reviewed the show for Dance Magazine), you have another chance this December at NJPAC's Victoria Theater:

Saturday, December 11, 7:30pm
Sunday, December 12, 3pm

Each dancer appears in a rarely-performed, signature solo work: 
Bebe Miller’s classic Rain, in which the choreographer powerfully portrays “a woman weighted down by a host of cares, yet refusing to be totally crushed by them” (New York Times); Urban Bush Women innovator Jawole Willa Jo Zollar’s recent Bring ‘Em Home, which explores the New Orleans tradition of Second Line dancing while commenting on the failed efforts to assist those displaced by Hurricane Katrina; Dianne McIntyre’s If You Don’t Know, set to a piano score composed by Olu Dara, which fuses improvisational movement and jazz to explore a series of African American lives; contemporary African dance master Germaine Acogny’s Untitled, a riveting new solo that incorporates video and original music to imagine an Africa with a powerful female President; and Carmen de Lavallade in a recreation of her role in The Creation, Geoffrey Holder’s classic dance that tells the Biblical story of creation as interpreted in a poem by James Weldon Johnson.

FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance is a project of 651 ARTS.

Information and ticketing

Directions to NJPAC

Review of FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance

Review
FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance
Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(Re-posted from DanceMagazine.com)

“FLY: Five First Ladies of Dance” featured short solos performed by daughters of Africa and her diaspora—Bebe Miller, Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Carmen de Lavallade, and Senegal’s Germaine Acogny—taking to the stage long past what mainstream American society considers to be the optimum age for a dancer and, to be frank, the optimum age for any woman. In celebrating its 20th anniversary, 651 ARTS chose to honor the tenacity and continuing achievements of these artists.

They hail from different aesthetic milieus. Miller’s career, for instance, burgeoned amid New York’s “downtown” avant garde, while de Lavallade trained with Lester Horton and has graced Broadway, opera, and film. Yet each has questioned the status quo of her art and her time, forging a legacy of creative engagement to inspire generations to come.

In Rain (1989), a modest rectangle of lawn grass becomes Miller’s set and silent partner. Dressed in red velvet, the dancer stretches her arms out wide, as if enjoying their reach. Backpedaling towards this plot of land, she contemplates it, tenderly runs her hand over it, sprawls before it in a tomboyish way, and dances an enigmatic pattern that nevertheless seems to radiate the pride of new ownership. Her solo made me think of wildly overlapping ideas such as the cultural and historical relationship of African and African American people to land; the relationship of dancers to space; and the manicured, altered nature of being roughly cut from one’s native context and planted in an unfamiliar place.

Acogny’s untitled work-in-progress, choreographed with Pierre Doussaint, appears to meditate on journeying. It opens with promise: a declaration that “We need women presidents de la Republique in Africa!” But Acogny’s meanderings are upstaged by Fred Koenig’s surreal and lovely video, and the piece will benefit from compression and focus.

McIyntre (premiering If You Don’t Know Me) and de Lavallade (in Geoffrey Holder’s The Creation from 1972) both served up lessons in elegant, authoritative comportment and command of space, all with minimal fuss. The McIntyre piece is an homage to artists she respects and wishes we knew better. De Lavallade’s storytelling in words and motions offers a saucy illustration of the Biblical take on how our world came to be and could make a believer out of Darwin.

By comparison, Zollar’s Bring ‘Em Home, inspired by the displaced citizens of New Orleans, felt humble. Zollar, lying on the floor, seems able to do little more than wave the white handkerchief clutched in her fingertips. It evokes, at first, surrender, then memories of people signaling for help from the roofs of their flooded homes. But the piece moves towards exuberant celebration and, returning for her bow, Zollar gave us a firm assignment: Go online, sign the petition, bring New Orleans’s diaspora home.

FLY: FIve First Ladies of Dance

Here's my recent Dance Magazine review of "FLY: FIve First Ladies of Dance," which featured Bebe Miller, Germaine Acogny, Dianne McIntyre, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Carmen de Lavallade, presented by 651 Arts at Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts.

Partners in love and art

Craving some uplift in this season of lack and dread? Spend some time with Carmen & Geoffrey--that would be that regal couple, Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder--in a generous, charming documentary directed by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob. It opens this Friday at Manhattan's Quad Cinema for a six-day run.

What I most love about this film is not its behind-scenes peeks at the creative process, or its gentle intertwining of personal histories with the story and major personalities of modern dance and popular entertainment in America. I most treasure the filmmakers' calm but direct insight into what it took for these gifted artists to rise, in a racist society, to the summit of their professions.

I'm moved by the young Holder's headstrong determination to push past dyslexia and express a whole range of artistic talents--dance, visual arts, music and more. It makes me sit up a bit taller when I recognize (and identify with) the haughty Caribbean-ness of something Holder told John Lahr: "I walk through doors. If I'm not wanted in a place, there's something wrong with the place, not me." For her part, de Lavallade, remembering their friendship with Josephine Baker, remarks, "You learn from people who are not afraid of who they are." (Yeah, you're right!) And so, we can learn from these fabulous two: how an artist crafts a world of his own from what ever comes to hand; how respect and reverence and everyday friendship help a marriage last over half a century; how to conquer by vision, self-discipline, love and generosity.

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CARMEN AND GEOFFREY
Directed by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob
Distributed by First Run Features

80 minutes, color; 2006

with: Carmen de Lavallade; Geoffrey Holder; Boscoe Holder; Leo Holder; Gus Solomons jr; Dudley Williams; Judith Jamison; Jennifer Dunning; Alvin Ailey; Josephine Baker

Quad Cinema -- March 13-18, 2009
34 West 13th Street, Manhattan
212-255-8800

An intimate look at two extraordinary personalities, Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, married fifty-three years. De Lavallade, a legendary dancer and choreographer whose career began in California, came to New York with Alvin Ailey, performing as a soloist with his company and as a ballerina with the Metropolitan Opera. Holder, a 6'6" "gentle giant" from Trinidad, has worked as a Broadway dancer, actor, director, choreographer, costume and set designer, painter and musician, winning a Tony Award for directing "The Wiz."

"More than an outstanding, five-decade creative collaboration," says Dance Magazine, CARMEN AND GEOFFREY which had its premiere with DFA's Dance on Camera Festival co-sponsored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, tells "one of the dance world's great love stories." Atkinson's film, shot over three years, explores this romantic and creative partnership. Containing rare dance footage from the 50's and 60's, featuring Alvin Ailey, Herbert Ross, Lester Horton, Joe Layton, Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker in Paris, among others, the film also features contemporary works, including Carmen's on-going partnership with Gus Solomons, Jr and Dudley Williams.

Filmmaker Linda Atkinson first met Carmen and Geoffrey while studying acting at the Yale School of Drama. She graduated with an MFA, having won the Carol Dye Acting Prize, and has since performed at theatres around the country. Working with her husband, Nick Doob, she produced a prize-winning series of health-related documentaries for high school students. She has recently directed an original play, FINEPRINT, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She is currently producing a film based on Robert Coles's "Women of Crisis."

Nick Doob has been a director, cinematographer and editor on numerous award-winning films. He has shot four Oscar-nominated films including FROM MAO TO MOZART, which won an Oscar. He directed DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and ELAINE STRITCH AT LIBERTY, which won an Emmy. In 2000 he won an Emmy as a producer on AMERICAN HIGH, the acclaimed verité TV series. For HBO he co-directed A BOY'S LIFE with Rory Kennedy, and is currently directing and producing a film about Alzheimer's Disease for HBO.

"Carmen & Geoffrey" doc opens March 13

Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob open their documentary Carmen & Geoffrey at New York's Quad Cinema on March 13. The film traces the career and love story of Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, dazzling stars of concert dance, Broadway, television and film.

The film contains rare dance footage from the 1950s and 1960s, both solos and duets, featuring Alvin Ailey, Herbert Ross, Lester Horton, Joe Layton, Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker in Paris, among others. There are also contemporary works, including Carmen’s on-going partnership with Gus Solomons jr and Dudley Williams and a sampling of Carmen’s and Geoffrey’s current choreographies.

Filmmaker Bios

Filmmaker Linda Atkinson first met Carmen and Geoffrey while studying acting at the Yale School of Drama. She graduated with an MFA, having won the Carol Dye Acting Prize. She has performed around the country at theatres including The Old Globe, the Yale Rep., the Indiana Rep., the Folger, and the Alaska Rep, New York’s Playwright’s Horizons, Manhattan Theater Club, The Public, and with Lyn Austin’s Lenox Theater Group. She began directing theatre in 1983 and worked at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Indiana Rep, the Peterborough Players, WestBank Theater Bar and for NBC’s Another World. Working with her husband, Nick Doob, she produced a prize winning series of health-related documentaries for high school students. She has recently directed an original play, FINEPRINT, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. She is currently producing a film based on Robert Coles’s Women of Crisis.

Nick Doob has been a director, cinematographer and editor on numerous award-winning films. He has shot four Oscar nominated films including From Mao to Mozart, which won the Oscar. He directed Down from the Mountain with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, and Elaine Stritch at Liberty, which won an Emmy. He has shot a number of Pennebaker-Hegedus films, including Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973), The War Room (1993), and directed with Chris Hegedus, Al Franken: God Spoke. In 2000 he won an Emmy as a producer on American High, the acclaimed verité TV series. For HBO he co-directed A Boy’s Life with Rory Kennedy and is currently directing and producing a film about Alzheimer’s Disease for HBO.

CARMEN & GEOFFREY
2006, 80 Minutes, Color, Digital Beta, 4:3, Stereo
A Film by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob
With: Carmen de Lavallade; Geoffrey Holder; Boscoe Holder; Leo Holder; Gus Solomons jr; Dudley Williams; Judith Jamison; Jennifer Dunning; Alvin Ailey; Josephine Baker
Photography: Nick Doob
Additional Photography: Leo Holder; Ron Gray
Sound: Linda Atkinson
Editing: Nick Doob

Quad Cinema
34 West 14th Street (east of Sixth Avenue)
Manhattan
Advance sales: 777-FILM #636 or MOVIETICKETS.COM

Memoria: Alvin Ailey

Remembering Alvin Ailey on the 50th Anniversary of His Company
by Roslyn Sulcas, The New York Times, November 28, 2008