# 102-year-old Harlem Renaissance dancer sees herself perform on film for first time **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 23, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331 "2015-04-23T01:11:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/1 "2015-04-23T01:11:33Z")
A wonderful birthday gift to a special lady. She’d never seen this footage before. Just imagine the flood of memories that she experienced. She’s still very alert for a 102. It was fun fun seeing her face light up and she was tapping her hands to the music. > **[WATCH: 102-year-old Harlem Renaissance dancer sees herself perform on film...](https://www.nydailynews.com/2015/04/22/watch-102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/)** > > For her 102nd birthday, Alice Barker got to feel young again. Barker, who currently lives at a Brooklyn nursing home, was visited by her friend and filmmaker David Shuff who finally got his hands o… > [@](#): > > For her 102nd birthday, Alice Barker got to feel young again. > > Barker, who currently lives at a Brooklyn nursing home, was visited by her friend and filmmaker David Shuff who finally got his hands on video of her dancing back in the 1930s and 1940s and showed it to her in a surprise hit online video. > > Barker was a chorus line dancer during the Harlem Renaissance period and performed in more clubs and theaters than she could remember. Some of her performances included dancing with legends like Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. ---
**Author:** ![Sarabellum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarabellum/32/3492_2.png) [@Sarabellum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarabellum)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/2 "2015-04-23T01:48:52Z")
Pretty cool! It must have been pretty obscure stuff for him to track down, but really nice that he made the effort. What a beautiful young lady she was, too. I guess she must be one of the last people alive to have performed in the 30s Harlem Renaissance. She looks so young in some of the films, maybe still in her teens, even. ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/3 "2015-04-23T02:03:00Z")
wow, cool video, its so hard to picture old people being young… ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/4 "2015-04-23T21:38:32Z")
That was just beautiful. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/5 "2015-04-23T22:45:24Z")
It’s a very uplifting story. The lady is so alert, has good hearing and eyesight. Hard to imagine that’s she’s a day over eighty. I’ve wondered if the nursing staff ever gets her out of bed and in a chair anymore. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2015, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/102-year-old-harlem-renaissance-dancer-sees-herself-perform-on-film-for-first-time/718331/6 "2015-04-24T00:18:27Z")
> [@Sarabellum1976](#): > > What a beautiful young lady she was, too. I guess she must be one of the last people alive to have performed in the 30s Harlem Renaissance. She looks so young in some of the films, maybe still in her teens, even. Yes, indeed she was a beauty… …and still is… Plus she still has such a spark! “Makes me wish I could get out of this bed and do it all again…” Someone who did what she loved and can now see it preserved and known. Would that we all be able to say that at 102… If she’s 102 now she would have been born in early 1913 or in mid/late 1912 – so she would be in her prime during the 30s and 40s.