GEOFFREY HOLDER
PORTRAIT OF A SHOWMAN
By Judy Raymond
Editor News and Features
Trinidad Guardian
December 17, 2001
Page 1
From the time they were small, it was clear that Geoffrey Holder and his big brother Boscoe were bursting with artistic talent. Boscoe was making money as a pianist from the time he was six, and as soon as Boscoe went off to London in search of fame and fortune, Geoffrey took over his dance troupe and stole his paints.
It's significant that neither brother confined himself to painting, but also practised a performing art. Even Geoffrey Holder's own appearance - towering height, shaven head, flowing capes, white suits - is an important aspect of his oeuvre. Because the Holder brothers are not just artists, but showmen.
That comes through very clearly in Jennifer Dunning's new book about Geoffrey Holder's long and successful career in the US, Geoffrey Holder: A Life in Theatre, Dance and Art.
Dunning writes about dance for the New York Times, so perhaps she felt out of her depth when she took on a subject who is not just a dancer and choreographer, but a director, designer of sets and costumes, an actor, photographer and painter. She interviewed her subject extensively, and, plainly, was completely bowled over by his Trini charm and gift of the gab. For one of Holder's many talents is talking, and this book's credits might well read: "By Geoffrey Holder, as told to Jennifer Dunning."
The bedazzled Dunning ended up quoting Holder for page after page, offering up, absolutely uncritically, his own view of his work, his achievements, the important events and personalities in his life. Thus a series of cola ads on television or a small role in a James Bond movie are given as much space as his own original work in dance or on canvas.
Holder didn't have any formal training in dance, but presumably Dunning does. She makes no attempt, however, to describe or evaluate his style or his influence. There are only Holder's own accounts of his work, which tend to go like this: "I did my dougla-bougala bougala-bunkabum kabum and the audience had a ball. It got wonderful reviews."
And the reader is left none the wiser.
There are more descriptions of Holder's costume designs and street clothes than of his choreography, and Dunning doesn't seem to have seen any of his work performed.
But it needn't have been much of a disadvantage that she had to depend on his version: Holder has a wonderful memory, so who knows what gems might have been coaxed out of him by a more rigorous and knowledgeable interviewer. He remembers what he wore to go to the theatre one night half a century ago: "I'm all dressed up in a tuxedo. It was raining so I had my black umbrella. I had my black homburg and my little rhinestone studs that Daddy gave me. And I looked cute! At that time I looked like a faun ..."
Self-doubt is not a phrase that means a great deal to Holder, clearly. Looking back at his friendship with the seminal black dancer Alvin Ailey, Holder recalls with impatience: "I adored him, but he got me very mad. He had all these complexes: he was not good enough; his feet were too flat. I'm just the opposite. If I have flat feet, I'm going to make them work. I'll do a ballet on flat feet. I could have said I was too tall to dance. I want to look taller. What God gives you, you take and you go with it. You walk on water with it. You must never say you can't."
Not surprisingly, there's no hint that Holder's work might have any failings.
Its origins aren't too clear either. Holder pays tribute to his parents as well as his big brother, but there's no mention of Beryl McBurnie and little attempt to explore the cultural climate of the Trinidad of the 1930s and 40s when he was growing up. Holder's costume designs owe a debt to Carnival, as any local could see, but Dunning doesn't know that.
Then too the profound, symbiotic relationship between Geoffrey and his brother deserves closer examination. ("Thank God I began copying Boscoe," Geoffrey is quoted as saying, but Dunning doesn't explore much further.) Even their painting styles are similar, although latterly Geoffrey's work has taken on a less polished manner. Dunning quotes one review from the New York Times which applies equally to Boscoe's, which said that Geoffrey's subjects are "women of African descent and " - a telling phrase - "the way some of them make an art form out of their looks." Presentation was an important element of his work, reviewer Vivien Raynor saw: "Whether it was the ornate frames in which he placed his paintings and drawings or the art itself," Dunning paraphrases, "Geoffrey projected the same excitement, the same instinct for elegance."
Holder's Tony awards, his meetings with presidents and celebrities, are all recorded here. There are glorious photographs of Holder on-stage, from his first breakthrough in Truman Capote's House of Flowers in 1954. There are even more photographs of him offstage, posing with his paintings, his family or famous friends. And there are reproductions of his costumes, costume designs and paintings from throughout his career.
So in the end, while, sadly, this volume lacks the substance to be considered anything more than a coffee-table book, nevertheless it's a very beautiful one, worth having for its illustrations alone.
Geoffrey Holder: A Life in Dance, Theatre and Art, published by harry Abrams, will be launched tomorrow at the 101 Tragarete Road art gallery, together with an exhibition of Holder's work. The book may be ordered from the gallery at $420.