Carmen de Lavallade, Beloved Dancer and Choreographer, Dies at 94

Beloved dancer, choreographer, and actor Carmen de Lavallade has died at the age of 94.

A Los Angeles native, she made her debut in 1949, performing with the Lester Horton Dance Theater. She danced as a lead dancer with Horton’s company until 1954, when she departed for New York City alongside Alvin Ailey. Both de Lavallade and Ailey made their Broadway debuts in the 1954 Truman Capote-Harold Arlen musical House of Flowers. It was in that show that she met her husband, the dancer/choreographer Geoffrey Holder.

As a dancer, she had ballets built for her by Horton, Holder, Ailey, Glen Tetley, John Butler, and Agnes de Mille. She succeeded her cousin, Janet Collins, as the principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera and was a guest artist with American Ballet Theatre. She also taught movement for actors at Yale and was a member of both

She began teaching at the Yale School of Drama as a choreographer and performer-in-residence in 1970.  Her films include Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandridge and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) with Harry Belafonte. She danced in productions on and off-Broadway ranging from Death of a Salesman to A Streetcar Named Desire.

She received the Dance Magazine Award in 1967, an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from Juilliard in 2008, the Dance USA Award in 2010, and a Kennedy Center Honor in 2017.

Predeceased by Holder, de Lavallade’s survivors include their son, Léo.