بیوگرافی
Lithe and graceful, American dancer, actress, and choreographer Carmen Paula de Lavallade was born in Los Angeles to Grace Grenot and Leo Paul De Lavallade, of Hispanic and Creole descent. She was raised in a predominantly Mexican neighborhood in East L.A. by her aunt Adele, who strongly encouraged her dream of becoming a dancer. Her older cousin, Janet Collins, the first African-American prima ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera, was her idol and role model.
De Lavallade began studying ballet at sixteen. After graduating from Thomas Jefferson High School—where she befriended future dance partner Alvin Ailey—she earned a scholarship to study dance under the renowned teacher and choreographer Lester Horton. From 1950 to 1954, she served as lead dancer with the Lester Horton Dance Theatre, performing ballet along with contemporary and ethnic dance styles, including traditional Native American dance. During this time, she also explored other arts such as painting and set design, and later took acting classes with Stella Adler. She contributed to designing many of her elaborate costumes to express her individuality.
In December 1954, De Lavallade made her Broadway debut alongside Alvin Ailey, Pearl Bailey, and Diahann Carroll in Truman Capote’s musical House of Flowers. During the production, she met Geoffrey Holder, a Trinidadian actor, musician, and dancer, best known for his role as the Voodoo priest Baron Samedi in the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973). Their marriage and creative partnership lasted from 1955 until Holder’s death in October 2014 and was documented in the 2005 film Carmen and Geoffrey.
In 1956, De Lavallade appeared as prima ballerina in Metropolitan Opera productions of Aida and Samson and Delilah. Off-Broadway, she performed in Othello and Death of a Salesman. In the early 1960s, she toured Europe and Asia as principal guest performer with the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. With support from Lena Horne, who introduced her to executives at 20th Century Fox, De Lavallade broke into film, often appearing as an exotic specialty dancer—sometimes uncredited—in productions such as Lydia Bailey (1952), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), The Egyptian (1954), and Carmen Jones (1954). She also took on a rare dramatic role as the girlfriend of the protagonist (played by Harry Belafonte) in Robert Wise’s film noir Odds Against Tomorrow (1959).
In 1970, De Lavallade became choreographer and performer-in-residence at the Yale School of Drama and joined the Yale Repertory Company and the American Repertory Theatre at Harvard. She taught movement to actors including Meryl Streep—co-starring with her in Yale’s 1975 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—Sigourney Weaver, and Joe Grifasi. She choreographed Porgy and Bess and Die Meistersinger for the Metropolitan Opera and staged productions for the Dance Theatre of Harlem.
Her many honors include New York’s Bessie Award (2006), the Capezio Dance Award (2007), the Duke Ellington Fellowship and Dance USA Awards (both 2010), an Obie Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in off-Broadway theatre (2016), and a Kennedy Center Honors Award (2017). She received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York/Juilliard School in 2007. In June 2014, De Lavallade premiered her autobiographical solo retrospective, As I Remember It, at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts.
