“When I was growing up in California, my mother would often describe a film that it was impossible for me to see: the great Carmen de Lavallade dancing to Odetta, dressed all in white like a priestess. She’d seen the footage a long time ago — 1974? — at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts by Lincoln Center in Manhattan, where she was researching the history of modern dance in America. De Lavallade was one of the first Black dancers to enjoy a long career in the theaters of high culture. But it wasn’t her reputation that secured her place in my mother’s memory; it was the spiritual elegance of her gestures. “She was attempting to embrace everything,” my mother told me. Even though we couldn’t watch the film together, she could share it in words — how de Lavallade seemed to gather, in her arms, everything lovely and lost. He’s got the whole world in his hands, Odetta sang, and de Lavallade’s dance made us both believe it — that we wouldn’t be dropped. Her grace was powerful enough to pierce me across the distance and the decades, to make me feel what I had never seen.”
Source:
Valle, C. D. (2023, August 23). The thrill of watching a film that isn’t online anywhere. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/magazine/carmen-de-lavallade-film.html
Analysis:
This article introduces a heartbreaking reality that many beautiful works of artistry and mastery are being lost. Much of the content that we consume in our modern era comes from various streaming platforms. The author describes how dance is often lost and forgotten because it doesn’t necessarily fit a narrative form. We are able to preserve some things with the help of amateur videography and YouTube. It makes me wonder what else are we forgetting. Its a scary thought because how do you know to remember something if it has already been forgotten. I think this has helped emphasize the importance of extending the reach of smaller historical parks like the one in Dayton. What the Wright Brothers and other early aviators did changed the face of human history forever and it should not be so easily forgotten.
