Carmen de Lavallade, a trailblazing dancer whose career spanned more than six decades, has passed away. She was 94.
According to the New York Times, her son, Léo Holder, said his mother passed away from a short illness on Monday in Englewood, N.J.
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater paid tribute to de Lavallade on social media.
“We honor and give thanks for her extraordinary life. Boundless artistry, and the generations she shaped through her work, her wisdom, and her presence,” the post read. “Her spirit will live on, forever woven into the fabric of our history.”
In her illustrious career, de Lavallade made appearances on Broadway, in films, and on TV. She appeared with Agnes de Mille, Harry Belafonte, Josephine Baker, and Geoffrey Holder, her husband of 59 years. Holder died in 2019 at 84 years old.
She was instrumental in the development of Alvin Ailey.
“I just thought he should be a dancer,” she told the Daily News in 2019. “In those days, a guy wouldn’t dare do a thing like that. They would be ostracized. So he used to sneak off with me to my dance class at Lester Horton’s. He didn’t tell anybody.”
de Lavallade was also one of the first Black prima ballerinas at the Metropolitan Opera.
“Dance is close to music and poetry. It’s ephemeral. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you can feel it,” she told Ebony magazine in 2012. “Dance is also universal. You can take it any place and people will understand it, because it’s a language everyone speaks.”
“I never planned; doors opened,” she said in an interview with The Boston Globe in 2014. “Most people in my career stay with one company, but I never did that. I met extraordinary people who gave me something to look forward to. I, unbeknownst to myself, became fearless about going into territory I knew nothing about.”
While most dancers were long retired, de Lavallade continued to perform. She was 88 at her last performance.
Along with her son, Carmen is survived by her older sister, Yvonne de Lavallade Davis.