Nationality. [6][10] While still a high school student, she opened a private dance school for young black children. 30 seconds. She had one of the most successful dance careers in Western dance theatre in the 20th century and directed her own dance company for many years. Katherine Dunham or the "Matriarch of Black Dance'' as many called her, was a revolutionary African American anthropologist and professional dancer. [54] Her dance education, while offering cultural resources for dealing with the consequences and realities of living in a racist environment, also brought about feelings of hope and dignity for inspiring her students to contribute positively to their own communities, and spreading essential cultural and spiritual capital within the U.S.[54], Just like her colleague Zora Neale Hurston, Dunham's anthropology inspired the blurring of lines between creative disciplines and anthropology. In particular, Dunham is a model for the artist as activist. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 4 (December 2010): 640642. This led to a custody battle over Katherine and her brother, brought on by their maternal relatives. Othella Dallas, 93, still teaches Katherine Dunham technique, which she learned from Dunham herself. [18] to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree. "Kaiso! The Dunham troupe toured for two decades, stirring audiences around the globe with their dynamic and highly theatrical performances. Dunhams writings, sometimes published under the pseudonym Kaye Dunn, include Katherine Dunhams Journey to Accompong (1946), an account of her anthropological studies in Jamaica; A Touch of Innocence (1959), an autobiography; Island Possessed (1969); and several articles for popular and scholarly journals. Jeff Dunham hails from Dallas, Texas. She expressed a hope that time and the "war for tolerance and democracy" (this was during World War II) would bring a change. most important pedagogues original work which includes :Batuada. Katherine returnedto to the usa in 1931 miss Dunham met one of. used throughout the world choros, rite de passage, los Idies, and. Its premiere performance on December 9, 1950, at the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, Chile,[39][40] generated considerable public interest in the early months of 1951. Kraut, Anthea. forming a powerful personal. Katherine Dunham Biography, Life, Interesting Facts. He was only one of a number of international celebrities who were Dunham's friends. [26] This work was never produced in Joplin's lifetime, but since the 1970s, it has been successfully produced in many venues. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) brought African dance aesthetics to the United States, forever influencing modern and jazz dance. Many of her students, trained in her studios in Chicago and New York City, became prominent in the field of modern dance. Katherine Johnson, ne Katherine Coleman, also known as (1939-56) Katherine Goble, (born August 26, 1918, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, U.S.died February 24, 2020, Newport News, Virginia), American mathematician who calculated and analyzed the flight paths of many spacecraft during her more than three decades with the U.S. space program. Other movies she performed in as a dancer during this period included the Abbott and Costello comedy Pardon My Sarong (1942) and the black musical Stormy Weather (1943), which featured a stellar range of actors, musicians and dancers.[24]. Radcliffe-Brown, Edward Sapir, Melville Herskovits, Lloyd Warner and Bronisaw Malinowski. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . Our site is COPPA and kidSAFE-certified, so you can rest assured it's a safe place for kids . Beda Schmid. Later Dunham established a second home in Senegal, and she occasionally returned there to scout for talented African musicians and dancers. See "Selected Bibliography of Writings by Katherine Dunham" in Clark and Johnson. [37] One historian noted that "during the course of the tour, Dunham and the troupe had recurrent problems with racial discrimination, leading her to a posture of militancy which was to characterize her subsequent career."[38]. The family moved to Joliet, Illinois when her father remarried. She was a woman far ahead of her time. A highlight of Dunham's later career was the invitation from New York's Metropolitan Opera to stage dances for a new production of Aida, starring soprano Leontyne Price. Interesting facts. She graduated from Joliet Central High School in 1928, where she played baseball, tennis, basketball, and track; served as vice-president of the French Club, and was on the yearbook staff. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . [17] She was one of the first African-American women to attend this college and to earn these degrees. Admission is $10, or $5 for students and seniors, and hours are by appointment; call 618-875-3636, or 618-618-795-5970 three to five days in advance. Katherine Dunham, was mounted at the Women's Center on the campus. 113 views, 2 likes, 4 loves, 0 comments, 6 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Institute for Dunham Technique Certification: Fun facts about Julie Belafonte brought to you by IDTC! A continuation based on her experiences in Haiti, Island Possessed, was published in 1969. Stormy Weather is a 1943 American musical film produced and released by 20th Century Fox, adapted by Frederick J. Jackson, Ted Koehler and H.S. [14] For example, she was highly influenced both by Sapir's viewpoint on culture being made up of rituals, beliefs, customs and artforms, and by Herkovits' and Redfield's studies highlighting links between African and African American cultural expression. Katherine Dunham, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer, had big plans for East St. Louis in 1977. She returned to the United States in 1936 informed by new methods of movement and expression, which she incorporated into techniques that transformed the world of dance. Artists are necessary to social justice movements; they are the ones who possess a gift to see beyond the bleak present and imagine a better future. Katherine Dunham in 1956. In the mid-1930s she conducted anthropological research on dance and incorporated her findings into her choreography, blending the rhythms and movements of . At the recommendation of her mentor Melville Herskovits, PhB'20a Northwestern University anthropologist and African studies expertDunham's calling cards read both "dancer" and . While Dunham was recognized as "unofficially" representing American cultural life in her foreign tours, she was given very little assistance of any kind by the U.S. State Department. In response, the Afonso Arinos law was passed in 1951 that made racial discrimination in public places a felony in Brazil.[42][43][44][45][46][47]. All You Need to Know About Dunham Technique. Dancer, anthropologist, social worker, activist, author. Radcliffe-Brown, Fred Eggan, and many others that she met in and around the University of Chicago. Dunham Company member Dana McBroom-Manno was selected as a featured artist in the show, which played on the Music Fair Circuit. There she met John Pratt, an artist and designer and they got married in 1941 until his death in 1986. Katherine Dunham in a photograph from around 1945. For almost 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time. The PATC teaching staff was made up of former members of Dunham's touring company, as well as local residents. 3 (1992): 24. Video. Dunham's mother, Fanny June Dunham (ne Taylor), who was of mixed French-Canadian and Native American heritage. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . ", "Dunham's European success led to considerable imitation of her work in European revues it is safe to say that the perspectives of concert-theatrical dance in Europe were profoundly affected by the performances of the Dunham troupe. theatrical designers john pratt. Birth date: October 17, 1956. [6] After her mother died, her father left the children with their aunt Lulu on Chicago's South Side. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology through African American Dance Pedagogy." Alvin Ailey later produced a tribute for her in 198788 at Carnegie Hall with his American Dance Theater, entitled The Magic of Katherine Dunham. [41] The State Department was dismayed by the negative view of American society that the ballet presented to foreign audiences. In 2004 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from, In 2005, she was awarded "Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research" by the. Dunham saved the day by arranging for the company to be paid to appear in a German television special, Karibische Rhythmen, after which they returned to the United States. Two years later she formed an all-Black company, which began touring extensively by 1943. 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. Her dance company was provided with rent-free studio space for three years by an admirer and patron, Lee Shubert; it had an initial enrollment of 350 students. Other Interesting Katherine Dunham Facts And Trivia 'Come Back To Arizona', a short story Katherine Dunham penned when she was 12 years old, was published in 1921 in volume two of 'The Brownies' Book'. "Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. The living Dunham tradition has persisted. A fictional work based on her African experiences, Kasamance: A Fantasy, was published in 1974. Omissions? Katherine Mary Dunham was born in Chicago in 1909. Over her long career, she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. As a graduate student in anthropology in the mid-1930s, she conducted dance research in the Caribbean. You dance because you have to. [15] It was in a lecture by Redfield that she learned about the relationship between dance and culture, pointing out that Black Americans had retained much of their African heritage in dances. [51] The couple had officially adopted their foster daughter, a 14-month-old girl they had found as an infant in a Roman Catholic convent nursery in Fresnes, France. [7] The family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois. Dunham created Rara Tonga and Woman with a Cigar at this time, which became well known. Dunham herself was quietly involved in both the Voodoo and Orisa communities of the Caribbean and the United States, in particular with the Lucumi tradition. [28] Strongly founded in her anthropological research in the Caribbean, Dunham technique introduces rhythm as the backbone of various widely known modern dance principles including contraction and release,[29] groundedness, fall and recover,[30] counterbalance, and many more. [9] In high school she joined the Terpsichorean Club and began to learn a kind of modern dance based on the ideas of Europeans [mile Jaques-Dalcroze] and [Rudolf von Laban]. International dance icon Katherine Dunham (right,) also an anthropologist, founded an art museum in East St. Louis, IL. [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 has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." Example. From the beginning of their association, around 1938, Pratt designed the sets and every costume Dunham ever wore. Dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham was born on June 22, 1910, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a small suburb of . It was considered one of the best learning centers of its type at the time. The recipient of numerous awards, Dunham received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1983 and the National Medal of Arts in 1989. The company soon embarked on a tour of venues in South America, Europe, and North Africa. Dance is an essential part of life that has always been with me. She majored in anthropology at the University of Chicago, and after learning that much of Black . She established the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to preserve Haitian and African instruments and artifacts from her personal collection. Katherine Dunham, June 22, Katherine Dunham was born to a French -Canadian woman and an African American man in the state of Chicago in America, Her birthday was 22nd June in the year 1909. . Katherine Dunham. Chin, Elizabeth. In 1950, Sol Hurok presented Katherine Dunham and Her Company in a dance revue at the Broadway Theater in New York, with a program composed of some of Dunham's best works. Dunham was both a popular entertainer and a serious artist intent on tracing the roots of Black culture. At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. Each procession builds on the last and focuses on conditioning the body to prepare for specific exercises that come later. During these years, the Dunham company appeared in some 33 countries in Europe, North Africa, South America, Australia, and East Asia. She also appeared in the Broadway musicals "Bal . New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Dunham and Kitt collaborated again in the 1970s in an Equity Production of the musical Peg, based on the Irish play, Peg O' My Heart. Dunham, Katherine dnm . It was a venue for Dunham to teach young black dancers about their African heritage. In 1976, Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, was a descendant of slaves from West Africa and Madagascar. [1] Dunham also created the Dunham Technique. 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 . A short biography on the legendary Katherine Dunham.All information found at: kdcah.org Enjoy the short history lesson and visit dancingindarkskin.com for mo. Dunham was active in human rights causes, and in 1992 she staged a 47-day hunger strike to highlight the plight of Haitian refugees. Also Known For : . Fighting, Alive, Have Faith. [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]. Dunham early became interested in dance. Educate, entertain, and engage with Factmonster. Video. She decided to live for a year in relative isolation in Kyoto, Japan, where she worked on writing memoirs of her youth. Biography. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) is revered as one of the great pillars of American dance history. 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. [34], According to Dunham, the development of her technique came out of a need for specialized dancers to support her choreographic visions and a greater yearning for technique that "said the things that [she] wanted to say. [14] Redfield, Herskovits, and Sapir's contributions to cultural anthropology, exposed Dunham to topics and ideas that inspired her creatively and professionally. In 1948, she opened A Caribbean Rhapsody, first at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, and then took it to the Thtre des Champs-lyses in Paris. There, her father ran a dry-cleaning business.[8]. While a student at the University of Chicago, Dunham also performed as a dancer, ran a dance school, and earned an early bachelor's degree in anthropology. 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. International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, First Pan-African World Festival of Negro Arts, National Museum of Dance's Mr. & Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame, "Katherine Dunham | African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist", "Timeline: The Katherine Dunham Collection at the Library of Congress (Performing Arts Encyclopedia, The Library of Congress)", "Special Presentation: Katherine Dunham Timeline". Katherine Dunham predated, pioneered, and demonstrated new ways of doing and envisioning Anthropology six decades ahead of the discipline. Dunham early became interested in dance. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katherine-Dunham, The Kennedy Center - Biography of Katherine Dunham, Katherine Dunham - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Her many original works include Lagya, Shango and Bal Negre. The company was located on the property that formerly belonged to the Isadora Duncan Dance in Caravan Hill but subsequently moved to W 43rd Street. Facts about Alvin Ailey talk about the famous African-American activist and choreographer. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. In 1964, Dunham settled in East St. Louis, and took up the post of artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in nearby Edwardsville. [1] She is best known for bringing African and Caribbean dance styles to the US. While in Haiti, she hasn't only studied Vodun rituals, but also participated and became a mambo, female high priest in the Vodun religion. 47 Copy quote. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] [2] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. [8], Despite her choosing dance, Dunham often voiced recognition of her debt to the discipline: "without [anthropology] I don't know what I would have done.In anthropology, I learned how to feel about myself in relation to other people. Facts About Katherine Dunham. In the mid-1950s, Dunham and her company appeared in three films: Mambo (1954), made in Italy; Die Grosse Starparade (1954), made in Germany; and Msica en la Noche (1955), made in Mexico City. The incident was widely discussed in the Brazilian press and became a hot political issue. Through her ballet teachers, she was also exposed to Spanish, East Indian, Javanese, and Balinese dance forms.[23]. A actor. Among her dancers selected were Marcia McBroom, Dana McBroom, Jean Kelly, and Jesse Oliver. Dana McBroom-Manno still teaches Dunham Technique in New York City and is a Master of Dunham Technique. She describes this during an interview in 2002: "My problemmy strong drive at that time was to remain in this academic position that anthropology gave me, and at the same time continue with this strong drive for motionrhythmic motion". Anthropology News 33, no. Her work helped send astronauts to the . It closed after only 38 performances. Question 2. She was also consulted on costuming for the Egyptian and Ethiopian dress. [3] She created many all-black dance groups. As a student, she studied under anthropologists such as A.R. She felt it was necessary to use the knowledge she gained in her research to acknowledge that Africanist esthetics are significant to the cultural equation in American dance. The group performed Dunham's Negro Rhapsody at the Chicago Beaux Arts Ball. THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE. Photo provided by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Morris Library Special Collections Research Center. : Writings by and About Katherine Dunham. Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century. In December 1951, a photo of Dunham dancing with Ismaili Muslim leader Prince Ali Khan at a private party he had hosted for her in Paris appeared in a popular magazine and fueled rumors that the two were romantically linked. Cruz Banks, Ojeya. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In 1938 she joined the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago and composed a ballet, LAgYa, based on Caribbean dance. This is where, in the late 1960s, global dance legend Katherine Dunham put down roots and taught the arts of the African diaspora to local children and teenagers. The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance. 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. Katherine Dunham, was published in a limited, numbered edition of 130 copies by the Institute for the Study of Social Change. In Hollywood, Dunham refused to sign a lucrative studio contract when the producer said she would have to replace some of her darker-skinned company members. She arranged a fundraising cabaret for a Methodist Church, where she did her first public performance when she was 15 years old. On February 22, 2022, Selkirk will offer a unique, one-lot auction titled, Divine Technique: Katherine Dunham Ephemera And Documents. Search input Search submit button. Johnson 's gift for numbers allowed her to accelerate through her education. Katherine Dunham died on May 21 2006. Her alumni included many future celebrities, such as Eartha Kitt. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology Through African American Dance Pedagogy." Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays. However, one key reason was that she knew she would be able to reach a broader public through dance, as opposed to the inaccessible institutions of academia. Deren is now considered to be a pioneer of independent American filmmaking. 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. In 1945, Dunham opened and directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance and Theatre near Times Square in New York City. According to the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, Dunham never thought she'd have a career in dance, although she did study with ballerina and choreographer Ruth Page, among others. Many of Dunham students who attended free public classes in East St. Louis Illinois speak highly about the influence of her open technique classes and artistic presence in the city. In September 1943, under the management of the impresario Sol Hurok, her troupe opened in Tropical Review at the Martin Beck Theater. Based on this success, the entire company was engaged for the 1940 Broadway production Cabin in the Sky, staged by George Balanchine and starring Ethel Waters. You can't learn about dances until you learn about people. While in Haiti, Dunham investigated Vodun rituals and made extensive research notes, particularly on the dance movements of the participants. She made world tours as a dancer, choreographer, and director of her own dance company. Dunham Technique was created by Katherine Dunham, a legend in the worlds of dance and anthropology. 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. It was a huge collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, so it naturally covered a lot of area. As a choreographer, anthropologist, educator, and activist, Katherine Dunham transformed the field of dance in the twentieth century. As a dancer and choreographer, Katherine Dunham (1910-2002) wowed audiences in the 1930s and 1940s when she combined classical ballet with African rhythms to create an exciting new dance style. Corrections? Katherine Dunham. What are some fun facts about Katherine Dunham? Dunham was born in Chicago on June 22, 1909. The show created a minor controversy in the press. [58] Early on into graduate school, Dunham was forced to choose between finishing her master's degree in anthropology and pursuing her career in dance. A key reason for this choice was because she knew that through dance, her work would be able to be accessed by a wider array of audiences; more so than if she continued to limit her work within academia. As an African American woman, she broke barriers of race and gender, most notably as the founder of an important dance company that toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia for several decades. In 1935, Dunham received grants to conduct fieldwork in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti to study Afro-Caribbean dance and other rituals. Tune in & learn about the inception of. As this show continued its run at the Windsor Theater, Dunham booked her own company in the theater for a Sunday performance. About that time Dunham met and began to work with John Thomas Pratt, a Canadian who had become one of America's most renowned costume and theatrical set designers. 2023 The HistoryMakers. Cruz Banks, Ojeya. In 1921, a short story she wrote when she was 12 years old, called "Come Back to Arizona", was published in volume 2 of The Brownies' Book. He had been a promising philosophy professor at Howard University and a protg of Alfred North Whitehead. "What Dunham gave modern dance was a coherent lexicon of African and Caribbean styles of movementa flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs, a polyrhythmic strategy of movingwhich she integrated with techniques of ballet and modern dance." Numerous scholars describe Dunham as pivotal to the fields of Dance Education, Applied Anthropology, Humanistic Anthropology, African Diasporic Anthropology and Liberatory Anthropology. Intrigued by this theory, Dunham began to study African roots of dance and, in 1935, she traveled to the Caribbean for field research. The troupe performed a suite of West Indian dances in the first half of the program and a ballet entitled Tropic Death, with Talley Beatty, in the second half. Katherine Dunham, the dancer, choreographer, teacher and anthropologist whose pioneering work introduced much of the black heritage in dance to the stage, died Sunday at her home in Manhattan. [12] Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Name: Mae C. Jemison. Much of the literature calls upon researchers to go beyond bureaucratic protocols to protect communities from harm, but rather use their research to benefit communities that they work with.