We can easily pull out a smartphone, make a video of ourselves eating or something even more mundane and share it on the Internet in case someone is remotely interested. That's something we take for granted these days.
But back in the day, most people couldn't hope to see themselves on video — even if they spent a lot of time onstage and shared the camera with big stars such as Frank Sinatra. That is why, when 102-year-old Alice Barker saw herself for the first time dancing on video, she was overwhelmed with happiness.
Barker, who now lives as a permanent resident in a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York, was once a chorus line dancer. In the 1930s and 1940s, she was a regular performer at nightclubs such as The Apollo, Cotton Club and Zanzibar Club and starred in "soundies" – what would be known as music videos today – with celebrity royalty such as Gene Kelly, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and, yes, Frank Sinatra himself.
But Barker never knew how she looked when she was dancing. That changed when David Shuff, a director who frequently visited Alice's nursing home with his therapy dog, found videos of Barker rocking it out in her younger years.
In the fall of 2014, Barker sat back in her nursing home bed and watched videos of herself dancing on Shuff's iPad — her hands making their own little dance as she watched herself swinging and swaying on the stage eight decades ago.
"Don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing," Barker said playfully as she watched the video, referring to the name of a song which she danced to.
At 102, her memory remains sharp. Barker fondly recalls a time during her earliest years when her mother was getting ready to bathe her outside the house when a band came playing at the corner.
"She had forgotten something, and went back in the house to get it. And when she came [back], I was gone, and I was down there naked, just going, dancing. And I can see me down there [now], naked, just dancing," she said. "And then if the band would stop playing, I'd look at them and say, 'Come on, let's get it going!'"
Asked how it felt seeing videos of herself dance after all these years, Barker gave a response that would melt the heart of even the coldest cynic.
"Making me wish that I could get out of this bed and do it all over again," Barker said. "It's just fabulous, fabulous to see these and remember all these things. I used to often say to myself I am being paid to do something that I enjoy doing and I would do for free because it just felt so good doing it because that music, you know, I get carried away in it."
Barker is now nearing 103 years old and has become a celebrity at her nursing home, where the recreation nurse plays her videos on the big TV in the communal room regularly. Barker knows her videos have spread across the Internet and is happy about it. According to Shuff, it makes her feel connected to the world again.
Watch the heartwarming video of Alice Barker seeing herself dance for the first time in video below. And grab a box of tissues!
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