It was a huge collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, so it naturally covered a lot of area. 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. Dunham technique is also inviting to the influence of cultural movement languages outside of dance including karate and capoeira.[36]. Dunham was exposed to sacred ritual dances performed by people on the islands of Haiti and Jamaica. One example of this was studying how dance manifests within Haitian Vodou. [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]. [3] Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. Despite these successes, the company frequently ran into periods of financial difficulties, as Dunham was required to support all of the 30 to 40 dancers and musicians. In 1963, Dunham became the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. One of the most significant dancers, artists, and anthropologic figures of the 20th century, Katherine Dunham defied racial and gender boundaries during a . The Katherine Dunham Fund buys and adapts for use as a museum an English Regency-style townhouse on Pennsylvania Avenue at Tenth Street in East Saint Louis. Having completed her undergraduate work at the University of Chicago and decided to pursue a performing career rather than academic studies, Dunham revived her dance ensemble. 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. As one of her biographers, Joyce Aschenbrenner, wrote: "anthropology became a life-way"[2] for Dunham. [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]. In 1967, Dunham opened the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East St. Louis in an effort to use the arts to combat poverty and urban unrest. 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. She wrote that he "opened the floodgates of anthropology" for her. 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. [52], On May 21, 2006, Dunham died in her sleep from natural causes in New York City. Katherine Dunham in 1956. Early in 1947 Dunham choreographed the musical play Windy City, which premiered at the Great Northern Theater in Chicago. Dunham used Habitation Leclerc as a private retreat for many years, frequently bringing members of her dance company to recuperate from the stress of touring and to work on developing new dance productions. She choreographed for Broadway stage productions and operaincluding Aida (1963) for the New York Metropolitan Opera. Facts about Alvin Ailey talk about the famous African-American activist and choreographer. She returned to graduate school and submitted a master's thesis to the anthropology faculty. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . Photo provided by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Morris Library Special Collections Research Center. In 2000 she was named one of the first one hundred of "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" by the Dance Heritage Coalition. While a student at the University of Chicago, she formed a dance group that performed in concert at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1934 and with the Chicago Civic Opera company in 193536. Katherine Dunham was born on the 22nd of June, 1909 in Chicago before she was taken by her parents to their hometown at Glen Ellyn in Illinois. Harrison, Faye V. "Decolonizing Anthropology Moving Further Toward and Anthropology for Liberation." [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. It opened in Chicago in 1933, with a black cast and with Page dancing the title role. At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. International dance icon Katherine Dunham (right,) also an anthropologist, founded an art museum in East St. Louis, IL. Born in Glen Ellyn, IL #6. Barrelhouse. Her the best movie is Casbah. Katherine Dunham, was mounted at the Women's Center on the campus. ", "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. In the summer of 1941, after the national tour of Cabin in the Sky ended, they went to Mexico, where inter-racial marriages were less controversial than in the United States, and engaged in a commitment ceremony on 20 July, which thereafter they gave as the date of their wedding. The Katherine Dunham Company became an incubator for many well known performers, including Archie Savage, Talley Beatty, Janet Collins, Lenwood Morris, Vanoye Aikens, Lucille Ellis, Pearl Reynolds, Camille Yarbrough, Lavinia Williams, and Tommy Gomez. Katherine Dunham, a world-renowned dancer and choreographer, had big plans for East St. Louis in 1977. 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. (She later wrote Journey to Accompong, a book describing her experiences there.) 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! [5] Along with the Great Migration, came White flight and her aunt Lulu's business suffered and ultimately closed as a result. Fun Facts. Genres Novels. He lived on 5 January 1931 and passed away on 1 December 1989. At this time Dunham first became associated with designer John Pratt, whom she later married. With Dunham in the sultry role of temptress Georgia Brown, the show ran for 20 weeks in New York. She directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York, and was artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. 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. [60], However, this decision did not keep her from engaging with and highly influencing the discipline for the rest of her life and beyond. Corrections? During these years, the Dunham company appeared in some 33 countries in Europe, North Africa, South America, Australia, and East Asia. In 1935, Dunham received grants to conduct fieldwork in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti to study Afro-Caribbean dance and other rituals. Numerous scholars describe Dunham as pivotal to the fields of Dance Education, Applied Anthropology, Humanistic Anthropology, African Diasporic Anthropology and Liberatory Anthropology. Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century. Choreographer. American dancer and choreographer (19092006). Birth City: Decatur. June 22 Dancer #4. Biography. Birth date: October 17, 1956. 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. This was the beginning of more than 20 years during which Dunham performed with her company almost exclusively outside the United States. During her studies, Dunham attended a lecture on anthropology, where she was introduced to the concept of dance as a cultural symbol. She had incurred the displeasure of departmental officials when her company performed Southland, a ballet that dramatized the lynching of a black man in the racist American South. 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. ", 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.". Katherine Dunham. The critics acknowledged the historical research she did on dance in ancient Egypt, but they were not appreciative of her choreography as staged for this production.[25]. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance. Back in the United States she formed an all-black dance troupe, which in 1940 performed her Tropics and Le Jazz . She decided to live for a year in relative isolation in Kyoto, Japan, where she worked on writing memoirs of her youth. But what set her work even further apart from Martha Graham and Jos Limn was her fusion of that foundation with Afro-Caribbean styles. He needn't have bothered. 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. "[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. The next year the production was repeated with Katherine Dunham in the lead and with students from Dunham's Negro Dance Group in the ensemble. If Cities Could Dance: East St. Louis. Nationality. ", Scholar of the arts Harold Cruse wrote in 1964: "Her early and lifelong search for meaning and artistic values for black people, as well as for all peoples, has motivated, created opportunities for, and launched careers for generations of young black artists Afro-American dance was usually in the avant-garde of modern dance Dunham's entire career spans the period of the emergence of Afro-American dance as a serious art. In 1937 she traveled with them to New York to take part in A Negro Dance Evening, organized by Edna Guy at the 92nd Street YMHA. 2 (2012): 159168. After her company performed successfully, Dunham was chosen as dance director of the Chicago Negro Theater Unit of the Federal Theatre Project. [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. While trying to help the young people in the community, Dunham was arrested. and creative team that lasted. 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. Her many original works include Lagya, Shango and Bal Negre. In her biography, Joyce Aschenbrenner (2002), credits Ms Dunham as the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance", and describes her work as: "fundamentally . "Her mastery of body movement was considered 'phenomenal.' Upon returning to Chicago, the company performed at the Goodman Theater and at the Abraham Lincoln Center. In 1967 she officially retired, after presenting a final show at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. 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. After the 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Dunham encouraged gang members in the ghetto to come to the center to use drumming and dance to vent their frustrations. until hia death in the 1986. Throughout her distinguished career, Dunham earned numerous honorary doctorates, awards and honors. THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE. Gender: Female. Example. 30 seconds. Example. Some Facts. 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. Dunham's dance career first began in Chicago when she joined the Little Theater Company of Harper Avenue. She built her own dance empire and was hailed as the queen of black dance. movement and expression. However, she did not seriously pursue a career in the profession until she was a student at the University of Chicago. Died: May 21, 2006. [1] The Dunham Technique is still taught today. In my mind, it's the most fascinating thing in the world to learn".[19]. In 1964, Dunham settled in East St. Louis, and took up the post of artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in nearby Edwardsville. The original two-week engagement was extended by popular demand into a three-month run, after which the company embarked on an extensive tour of the United States and Canada. It was not a success, closing after only eight performances. Subsequently, Dunham undertook various choreographic commissions at several venues in the United States and in Europe. As a student, she studied under anthropologists such as A.R. 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. Receiving a post graduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. teaches us about the impact Katherine Dunham left on the dance community & on the world. Deren is now considered to be a pioneer of independent American filmmaking. Born: June 22, 1909. informed by new methods of america's most highly regarded. Katherine Mary Dunham (also known as Kaye Dunn, June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and social activist. 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]. While in Haiti, Dunham investigated Vodun rituals and made extensive research notes, particularly on the dance movements of the participants. When she was not performing, Dunham and Pratt often visited Haiti for extended stays. Kaiso is an Afro-Caribbean term denoting praise. Dunham is credited with introducing international audiences to African aesthetics and establishing African dance as a true art form. In 1976, Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work helped send astronauts to the . ", Kraut, Anthea, "Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of, This page was last edited on 12 February 2023, at 22:48. 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. A carriage house on the grounds is to . Schools inspired by it were later opened in Stockholm, Paris, and Rome by dancers who had been trained by Dunham. Born in 1909 during the turn of the century Victorian era in the small town of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, she became one of the first dance anthropologists, started the first internationally-touring pre-dominantly black dance company . (Below are 10 Katherine Dunham quotes on positivity. You dance because you have to. In 1992, at age 83, Dunham went on a highly publicized hunger strike to protest the discriminatory U.S. foreign policy against Haitian boat-people. Katherine Dunham in a photograph from around 1945. 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. Even in retirement Dunham continued to choreograph: one of her major works was directing the premiere full, posthumous production Scott Joplin's opera Treemonisha in 1972, a joint production of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Morehouse College chorus in Atlanta, conducted by Robert Shaw. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology Through African American Dance Pedagogy." The group performed Dunham's Negro Rhapsody at the Chicago Beaux Arts Ball. There, her father ran a dry-cleaning business.[8]. On February 22, 2022, Selkirk will offer a unique, one-lot auction titled, Divine Technique: Katherine Dunham Ephemera And Documents. She was instrumental in getting respect for Black dancers on the concert dance stage and directed the first self-supported Black dance company. ", "Kaiso! Cruz Banks, Ojeya. 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. 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].