Carmen and Geoffrey

Director: Linda Atkinson, Nick Doob

Distributor: First Run Features

Country: US

DVD Release Date: July 21, 2009

Synopsis: Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder, two living legends in the world of American dance, are the subjects of this documentary by Linda Atkinson and Nick Doob. Carmen achieved notoriety in the early 1950s as a lead dancer of incomparable beauty and grace with Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater. Geoffrey, large in life and an elemental force on stage, found fame not only as a dancer but also as an actor (Live and Let Die), soda spokesman (" 7-UP, the Un-Colaaaaa...”) and theater director (The Wiz). He and Carmen met in 1954 and married a year later. Filmed over several years in the United States, Trinidad and Paris, this documentary features candid interviews and dance performances, with legends like Alvin Ailey, Herbert Ross, Lester Horton, Joe Layton, Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker, demonstrating the talent and uninterrupted creativity of these icons of dance. 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. [Synopsis courtesy of First Run Features]