Click to Watch!!! For her 102nd birthday, Alice Barker got to feel young again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLUgRTD1mpwSXbaOTCPcGb5znT10fgVmMm&v=bktozJWbLQg&feature=player_embedded#t=0
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.
But she had never seen video of her performances and couldn't remember
much of the details to Shuff who was eager to find the rare footage.
Shuff, 38, told the Daily News he finally tracked down the Celluloid Impressions organization that has a number of "soundies," which were short musical dance films of the time.
After Shuff figured out she was listed under the name "Baker" he got a
few performances that he decided to bring to her last fall after her
birthday.
"It was one of those things as soon I saw it I was like, 'oh, that's her,'" he said.
Barker was front and center for many of the numbers and she and other
women dressed in skimpy outfits - especially for the time.
The scenes rekindled Barker's dancing spirit and Shuff said she watched them a half dozen times in a row.
"(The soundies are) making me wish that I could get out of this bed and
do it all over again," she said when asked how she felt after watching
them.
This was obviously a special period in her life.
"I used to often say to myself I am being paid to do something that I
enjoy doing and would do it for free because it just felt so good doing
it," she said.
Shuff also tracked down a picture of Barker at the time that she hung
on her wall. The picture and soundies have been a great "reinvigorator"
for the 102-year-old woman, he said.
The former Williamsburg resident, who since moved to Oakland shortly
after filming the video, said as soon as Barker saw the soundies she
started to remember much more about the period.
Like that her nickname was Chicken Little?
"That's it," she nods. "Because every time we go somewhere they say
'what do you want to eat?' I'd say 'chicken.' So they called me Chicken
Little."
When he brought the routines to barker he decided to have someone film
the moment for prosperity. Six months later he edited the video and posted it to YouTube where it has gained more than 700,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon.
"What I love the most is there are young people on YouTube and reddit saying 'oh, old people are people,'" he said.
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