102-year-old former Apollo, Cotton Club dancer sees old performance video for first time
102-year-old Alice Barker used to dance at the Apollo and Cotton Club and with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Grace Kelly. In her time as a line dancer, she had been in movie commercials and television shows, but she had never seen video of herself dancing until now.
But David Shuff, who met Barker when he brought his therapy dog to her retirement home years ago, decided to look into the matter and see what he could find.
He contacted Mark Cantor, who collected short musical films called “soundies” and discovered that videos of Barker still existed; they had just been filed under the wrong name, “Baker.” They were able to locate three soundies to show to Barker.
Delighted, Barker sang along with the songs she once danced to and lamented the fact that she could not dance anymore.
But now, with the soundies playing in the retirement home’s communal area, Barker is a super star to those she lives with. She says she “feels connected to the world again” knowing that her videos are now online.
She loves to watch herself dance and to connect to that time in her life.
“I used to often say to myself, I am being paid to do something that I enjoy doing and I would do it for free,” she said. “Because it just felt so good doing it, because that music, you know, I just get carried away in it.”
At 115 years old, she’s the oldest living person alive today:
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