{"id":17396,"date":"2023-02-03T19:05:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T19:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/?p=17396"},"modified":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T07:16:20","slug":"from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-house-of-flowers-geoffrey-holder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/2023\/02\/03\/from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black-house-of-flowers-geoffrey-holder\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ballet to Broadway and Black & House of Flowers: Geoffrey Holder"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Ballet to Broadway and Black and Geoffrey Holder<\/h2>\n
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Visit Geoffrey Holder’s Orbit in From Ballet To Broadway and Black<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Geoffrey Holder as Samedi in House of Flowers<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Geoffrey Holder was an actor, dancer, choreographer, composer, dancer, and painter native to Port of Spain, Trinidad. After working as a principal dancer at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet 1955-1956, Holder decided to temporarily leave ballet and pursue a career in Broadway. His first Broadway debut was in Harold Arlon\u2019s <\/span>House of Flowers <\/span><\/i><\/a>where he played the role of Samedi and choreographed the Banda Dance<\/em> in the show. <\/span>While working on <\/span>House of Flowers<\/span><\/i>, Holder met Alvin Ailey<\/a>, who he would continue to work extensively with, and Carmen de Lavallade<\/a>, who would eventually become his wife.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Holder also created the famous Trinidadian ballet, Dougla<\/em><\/a>, for the Dance Theater of Harlem in 1974. The sometimes derogatory term,”dougla”, refers to someone who is of African and South Asian descent and the ballet showcases the beauty and complexities of mixed culture through the depiction of a Dougla wedding ritual.<\/p>\n

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Sources<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Geoffrey Holder Biography, Wikipedia<\/a>
\nGeoffrey Holder Biography, The Museum City of New York<\/a>
\nGeoffrey Holder Biography, The History Makers<\/a>
\nGeoffrey Holder’s\u00a0Dougla<\/em>, Culture View MIA<\/a><\/p>\n

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More about Geoffrey Holder\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Geoffrey Holder (1930-2014), a native of Trinidad, was an actor, dancer, choreographer, composer, designer, and painter. His brother Arthur Aldwyn Holder taught him how to paint and dance, including Geoffrey in the Holder Dancing Company at age seven. He started performing on Broadway in 1954 in House of Flowers<\/i>, followed by roles in Waiting for Godot<\/i> (1957) and later, Josephine Baker <\/i>(1964). His filmography includes roles in Doctor Dolittle<\/i> (1967), the James Bond film Live and Let Die<\/i> (1973), and Annie<\/i> (1982). He was also well known for his commercials promoting 7Up.<\/p>\n

See more.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Sources:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Geoffrey Holder, MoBBallet<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\" Morinsola Tinubu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Ballet to Broadway and Black and Geoffrey Holder Geoffrey Holder was an actor, dancer, choreographer, composer, dancer, and painter native to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"universe-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[301,253],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-ballet-to-broadway-and-black","category-universe"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17396"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18752,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17396\/revisions\/18752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mobballet.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}