In addition, Dunham conducted special projects for African American high school students in Chicago; was artistic and technical director (196667) to the president of Senegal; and served as artist-in-residence, and later professor, at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and director of Southern Illinoiss Performing Arts Training Centre and Dynamic Museum in East St. Louis, Illinois. Somewhat later, she assisted him, at considerable risk to her life, when he was persecuted for his progressive policies and sent in exile to Jamaica after a coup d'tat. Katherine Dunham, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer, had big plans for East St. Louis in 1977. Among her dancers selected were Marcia McBroom, Dana McBroom, Jean Kelly, and Jesse Oliver. Regarding her impact and effect he wrote: "The rise of American Negro dance commenced when Katherine Dunham and her company skyrocketed into the Windsor Theater in New York, from Chicago in 1940, and made an indelible stamp on the dance world Miss Dunham opened the doors that made possible the rapid upswing of this dance for the present generation." (Below are 10 Katherine Dunham quotes on positivity. Fun facts. ", While in Europe, she also influenced hat styles on the continent as well as spring fashion collections, featuring the Dunham line and Caribbean Rhapsody, and the Chiroteque Franaise made a bronze cast of her feet for a museum of important personalities.". While trying to help the young people in the community, Dunham was arrested. The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance. Born Katherine Coleman in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia . The prince was then married to actress Rita Hayworth, and Dunham was now legally married to John Pratt; a quiet ceremony in Las Vegas had taken place earlier in the year. Katherine Dunham on dance anthropology. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." 30 seconds. Katherine Dunham. She and her company frequently had difficulties finding adequate accommodations while on tour because in many regions of the country, black Americans were not allowed to stay at hotels. Such visitors included ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, novelist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, Robert Redfield, Bronisaw Malinowski, A.R. Marlon Brando frequently dropped in to play the bongo drums, and jazz musician Charles Mingus held regular jam sessions with the drummers. Corrections? International dance icon Katherine Dunham (right,) also an anthropologist, founded an art museum in East St. Louis, IL. Katherine Dunham's long and remarkable life spanned the fields of anthropology, dance, theater, and inner city social work.As an anthropologist, Dunham studied and lived among the peoples of Haiti and other Caribbean islands; as a dancer and choreographer she combined "primitive" Caribbean dances with . By the time she received an M.A. "Her mastery of body movement was considered 'phenomenal.' When she was not performing, Dunham and Pratt often visited Haiti for extended stays. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Dunham also studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima ballerina of the Chicago Opera. As a teenager, she won a scholarship to the Dunham school and later became a dancer with the company, before beginning her successful singing career. As this show continued its run at the Windsor Theater, Dunham booked her own company in the theater for a Sunday performance. "Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology. Understanding that the fact was due to racial discrimination, she made sure the incident was publicized. Although it was well received by the audience, local censors feared that the revealing costumes and provocative dances might compromise public morals. Text:. First Name Katherine #37. [10], After completing her studies at Joliet Junior College in 1928, Dunham moved to Chicago to join her brother Albert at the University of Chicago. Dance is an essential part of life that has always been with me. They were stranded without money because of bad management by their impresario. Receiving a post graduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. Encouraged by Speranzeva to focus on modern dance instead of ballet, Dunham opened her first dance school in 1933, calling it the Negro Dance Group. The 1940s and 1950s saw the successors to the pioneers, give rise to such new stylistic variations through the work of artistic giants such as Jos Limn and Merce Cunningham. Katherine Dunham was a rebel among rebels. The following year, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Dunham to be technical cultural advisera sort of cultural ambassadorto the government of Senegal in West Africa. Pas de Deux from "L'Ag'Ya". In August she was awarded a bachelor's degree, a Ph.B., bachelor of philosophy, with her principal area of study being social anthropology. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) was a world-renowned choreographer who broke many barriers of race and gender, most notably as an African American woman whose dance company toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia for several decades. [61][62][63][64] During this time, in addition to Dunham, numerous Black women such as Zora Neal Hurston, Caroline Bond Day, Irene Diggs, and Erna Brodber were also working to transform the discipline into an anthropology of liberation: employing critical and creative cultural production.[54]. At the time, the South Side of Chicago was experiencing the effects of the Great Migration were Black southerners attempted to escape the Jim Crow South and poverty. She was instrumental in getting respect for Black dancers on the concert dance stage and directed the first self-supported Black dance company. Short Biography. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance."[2]. [2] Most of Dunham's works previewed many questions essential to anthropology's postmodern turn, such as critiquing understandings of modernity, interpretation, ethnocentrism, and cultural relativism. Then she traveled to Martinique and to Trinidad and Tobago for short stays, primarily to do an investigation of Shango, the African god who was still considered an important presence in West Indian religious culture. She also continued refining and teaching the Dunham Technique to transmit that knowledge to succeeding generations of dance students. Choreographer. Long, Richard A, and Joe Nash. Dunham considered some really important and interesting issues, like how class and race issues translate internationally, being accepted into new communities, different types of being black, etc. She taught dance lessons to help pay for her education at the University of Chicago. teaches us about the impact Katherine Dunham left on the dance community & on the world. They had particular success in Denmark and France. However, she did not seriously pursue a career in the profession until she was a student at the University of Chicago. She made national headlines by staging a hunger strike to protest the U.S. governments repatriation policy for Haitian immigrants. Katherine Dunham Facts that are Fun!!! [13] The Anthropology department at Chicago in the 1930s and 40s has been described as holistic, interdisciplinary, with a philosophy of liberal humanism, and principles of racial equality and cultural relativity. She choreographed for Broadway stage productions and operaincluding Aida (1963) for the New York Metropolitan Opera. In September 1943, under the management of the impresario Sol Hurok, her troupe opened in Tropical Review at the Martin Beck Theater. Kraft from the story by Jerry Horwin and Seymour B. Robinson, directed by Andrew L. Stone, produced by William LeBaron and starring Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Cab Calloway.The film is one of two Hollywood musicals with an African . [11], During her time in Chicago, Dunham enjoyed holding social gatherings and inviting visitors to her apartment. If Cities Could Dance: East St. Louis. The schools she created helped train such notables as Alvin Ailey and Jerome Robbins in the "Dunham technique." Death . However, after her father remarried, Albert Sr. and his new wife, Annette Poindexter Dunham, took in Katherine and her brother. The highly respected Dance magazine did a feature cover story on Dunham in August 2000 entitled "One-Woman Revolution". Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, creator of the Dunham Technique, author, educator, anthropologist, and social activist. Barrelhouse. In 1963 Dunham was commissioned to choreograph Aida at New York's Metropolitan Opera Company, with Leontyne Price in the title role. Her many original works include Lagya, Shango and Bal Negre. Dunham Technique was created by Katherine Dunham, a legend in the worlds of dance and anthropology. Both remained close friends of Dunham for many years, until her death. Born: June 22, 1909. The Met Ballet Company dancers studied Dunham Technique at Dunham's 42nd Street dance studio for the entire summer leading up to the season opening of Aida. informed by new methods of america's most highly regarded. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264871.003.0001, "Dunham Technique: Fall and recovery with body roll", "Katherine Dunham on need for Dunham Technique", "The Negro Problem in a Class Society: 19511960 Brazil", "Katherine Dunham, Dance Icon, Dies at 96", "Candace Award Recipients 19821990, Page 1", "Katherine the Great: 2004 Lifetime Achievement Awardee Katherine Dunham", Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology, Katherine Dunham on her anthropological films, Guide to the Photograph Collection on Katherine Dunham, Katherine Dunham's oral history video excerpts, "Katherine Dunham on Overcoming 1940s Racism", Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, Recalling Choreographer and Activist Dunham, "How Katherine Dunham Revealed Black Dance to the World", Katherine Dunham, Dance Pioneer, Dies at 96, "On Stage and Backstage withTalented Katherine Dunham, Master Dance Designer", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katherine_Dunham&oldid=1139015494, American people of French-Canadian descent, 20th-century African-American politicians, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, In 1971 she received the Heritage Award from the, In 1983 she was a recipient of one of the highest artistic awards in the United States, the. Commonly grouped into the realm of modern dance techniques, Dunham is a technical dance form developed from elements of indigenous African and Afro-Caribbean dances. Her father was of black ancestry, a descendant of slaves from West Africa and Madagascar, while her mother belonged to mixed French-Canadian and Native . As Wendy Perron wrote, "Jazz dance, 'fusion,' and the search for our cultural identity all have their antecedents in Dunham's work as a dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. This initiative drew international publicity to the plight of the Haitian boat-people and U.S. discrimination against them. A dance choreographer. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology through African American Dance Pedagogy." "[35] Dunham explains that while she admired the narrative quality of ballet technique, she wanted to develop a movement vocabulary that captured the essence of the Afro-Caribbean dancers she worked with during her travels. But what set her work even further apart from Martha Graham and Jos Limn was her fusion of that foundation with Afro-Caribbean styles. Early in 1947 Dunham choreographed the musical play Windy City, which premiered at the Great Northern Theater in Chicago. Pratt, who was white, shared Dunham's interests in African-Caribbean cultures and was happy to put his talents in her service. She returned to graduate school and submitted a master's thesis to the anthropology faculty. Biography. ..American Anthropologist.. 112, no. As one of her biographers, Joyce Aschenbrenner, wrote: "anthropology became a life-way"[2] for Dunham. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist [1]. In 1939, Dunham's company gave additional performances in Chicago and Cincinnati and then returned to New York. Katherine Dunham predated, pioneered, and demonstrated new ways of doing and envisioning Anthropology six decades ahead of the discipline. Katherine Dunham got an early bachelor's degree in anthropology as a student at the University of Chicago. . He was the founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City. She was hailed for her smooth and fluent choreography and dominated a stage with what has been described as 'an unmitigating radiant force providing beauty with a feminine touch full of variety and nuance. She also danced professionally, owned a dance company, and operated a dance studio. Lyndon B. Johnson was in the audience for opening night. Fighting, Alive, Have Faith. Dunham, who died at the age of 96 [in 2006], was an anthropologist and political activist, especially on behalf of the rights of black people. As a graduate student in anthropology in the mid-1930s, she conducted dance research in the Caribbean. American Anthropologist 122, no. In 1963, Dunham became the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. "Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham". After running it as a tourist spot, with Vodun dancing as entertainment, in the early 1960s, she sold it to a French entrepreneur in the early 1970s. Some Facts. Anna Kisselgoff, a dance critic for The New York Times, called Dunham "a major pioneer in Black theatrical dance ahead of her time." Dunham ended her fast only after exiled Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Jesse Jackson came to her and personally requested that she stop risking her life for this cause. As Julia Foulkes pointed out, "Dunham's path to success lay in making high art in the United States from African and Caribbean sources, capitalizing on a heritage of dance within the African Diaspora, and raising perceptions of African American capabilities."[65]. [5] She had an older brother, Albert Jr., with whom she had a close relationship. In 1946, Dunham returned to Broadway for a revue entitled Bal Ngre, which received glowing notices from theater and dance critics. [21] This style of participant observation research was not yet common within the discipline of anthropology. Katherine Mary Dunham (also known as Kaye Dunn, June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and social activist. In 1928, while still an undergraduate, Dunham began to study ballet with Ludmilla Speranzeva, a Russian dancer who had settled in Chicago, after having come to the United States with the Franco-Russian vaudeville troupe Le Thtre de la Chauve-Souris, directed by impresario Nikita Balieff. Later in the year she opened a cabaret show in Las Vegas, during the first year that the city became a popular entertainment as well as gambling destination. In particular, Dunham is a model for the artist as activist. Here are 10 facts about her fascinating life. In 1947 it was expanded and granted a charter as the Katherine Dunham School of Cultural Arts. 2 (2012): 159168. A photographic exhibit honoring her achievements, entitled Kaiso! Katherine Dunham was an African-American dancer and choreographer, producer, author, scholar, anthropologist and Civil Rights activist.