Dancers wanted me to paint and painters wanted me to dance. Actors wanted me to paint and dance. My philosophy is that you should do everything”. These words are a true testimony of how Geoffrey Holder lives his life Geoffrey was born in 1930 into an artistic and creative family. His creative career began at quite an early age where he grew up dancing, singing, painting and designing clothes. Much of that Creative energy emerged during his time at Queen’s Royal Col- lege, which he attended from 1942 to 1948.
Geoffrey’s story cannot be told without Boscoe, Geoffrey’s older brother by some 10 years. He was his mentor, his idol. Whatever Boscoe did, Geoffrey copied. As a young boy Geoffrey appro-priated his brother’s paints and worked diligently at his first con- certed artistic effort. When finished he replaced Boscoe’s paintings that hung around the house with those of his own and as he tells the story “When Boscoe came home, he beat the daylights out of me, but when he took a good look at what I had done, he telephoned the director of the local library to come over. After the man had seen my paintings, he arranged a show at the library for me.”
His international success began in 1953 when he was asked by Agnes de Mille to bring his dance troupe to New York to audition for Sol Hurök. Instantly he took New York by storm and was a hit in the Broadway Musical “House of Flowers” and as its principal dancer Geoffrey helped introduce the steel band to Broadway. His beautiful paintings were exhibited at the Barone Gallery and hisvdance company toured around the country to critical acclaim. Geoffrey has had the privilege of performing in Paris with Josephine Baker and has starred in such feature films as Doctor Doolittle, Live and Lef Die as Baron Samedi, Annie as Punjab, Every Thing You Always Wanted to Know about Sex, Swashbuckler and Boomerang. He has also starred in ‘Waiting for Godot’ on Broadway. He has appeared on television in ‘Androceles and the Lion’, ‘A Man Without a Country’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
His first of several CLIO Awards, advertising’s Oscar, was for a BWIA 1969 commercial. In 1975 Geoffrey won two Tony Awards as director and costume designer of the Broadway play “The Wiz’ The Times magazine said of Geoffrey’s contribution to the success of “The Wiz” that “No witch doctor could have conjured up a more fantastic stew pot of sights for bored eyes.” In 1991 Drexel University as part of its centennial celebration of 100 years of education in art, science and industry awarded the Holders, Boscoe, Geoffrey and Christian its first Award for International Excellence.
He has danced with the likes of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, John Butler’s Chamber Ballet and the Boston Ballet. He was premier danseur at the Metropolitan Opera house in Aida and La Perichole and he choreographed and designed the sets and costumes for Jeux Des Dieux commissioned by the Harkness Ballet. For the Dance Theatre of Harlem, he choreographed, designed and wrote the music of Dougla, Banda and Bele and created the costumes and sets for Firebird, all now permanent parts of the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s repertoire. Once when asked to comment on the description of his voice and language as a homey West Indian accent invariably calypso in character, he replied in his distinctive resonant, mellifluous voice “I was born with it. It’s a QRC accent.”
He was a visiting professor at Yale University and has received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities Degree from the Savannah College of Arts and Design, Georgia, USA. He has also received an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from North Carolina Central University, USA Geoffrey is also the author of Black Gods, Green Islands; Geoffrey Holder’s Caribbean Cookbook and The Art of Geoffrey Holder. He has been a professional photographer since the age of nineteen, and a major book of his photography, Adam, received critical acclaim.
His marriage in 1955 to Carmen de Lavallade, actress, dancer and choreographer produced one son, Leo. The latest tribute to this multitalented Royalian is the establishment of The Geoffrey Holder/Carmen de Lavallade Academy in New York in Oct 2003.