[54] Her legacy within Anthropology and Dance Anthropology continues to shine with each new day. By drawing on a vast, never-utilized trove of archival materials along with oral histories, choreographic analysis, and embodied research, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora offers new insight about how this remarkable woman built political solidarity through the arts. [6] After her mother died, her father left the children with their aunt Lulu on Chicago's South Side. [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. Cruz Banks, Ojeya. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Her fieldwork inspired her innovative interpretations of dance in the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. The school was managed in Dunham's absence by Syvilla Fort, one of her dancers, and thrived for about 10 years. First Name Katherine #37. Katherine Dunham Fused Together Dance and Anthropology She wanted to know not only how people danced but why they dance. After the national tour of Cabin in the Sky, the Dunham company stayed in Los Angeles, where they appeared in the Warner Brothers short film Carnival of Rhythm (1941). 10 Facts About Katherine Johnson - Mental Floss 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. "My job", she said, "is to create a useful legacy. Last Name Dunham #5. 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. Dunham refused to hold a show in one theater after finding out that the city's black residents had not been allowed to buy tickets for the performance. Dunham's background as an anthropologist gave the dances of the opera a new authenticity. [5] She had an older brother, Albert Jr., with whom she had a close relationship. 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. After he became her artistic collaborator, they became romantically involved. Pratt, who was white, shared Dunham's interests in African-Caribbean cultures and was happy to put his talents in her service. By the time she received an M.A. ((Photographer unknown, Courtesy of Missouri History Museum Photograph and Prints collection. [17] She was one of the first African-American women to attend this college and to earn these degrees. [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. But what set her work even further apart from Martha Graham and Jos Limn was her fusion of that foundation with Afro-Caribbean styles. Birthday : June 22, 1909. Over the years Katherine Dunham has received scores of special awards, including more than a dozen honorary doctorates from various American universities. 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: Decolonizing Anthropology Through African American Dance Pedagogy." Anthropology News 33, no. [13] Under their tutelage, she showed great promise in her ethnographic studies of dance. A fictional work based on her African experiences, Kasamance: A Fantasy, was published in 1974. This led to a custody battle over Katherine and her brother, brought on by their maternal relatives. Katherine Dunham is the inventor of the Dunham technique and a renowned dancer and choreographer of African-American descent. . She died a month before her 97th birthday.[53]. [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 impresario Sol Hurok, manager of Dunham's troupe for a time, once had Ms. Dunham's legs insured for $250,000. [59] She ultimately chose to continue her career in dance without her master's degree in anthropology. 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. By Renata Sago. At the age of 82, Dunham went on a hunger strike in . As a student, she studied under anthropologists such as A.R. (She later wrote Journey to Accompong, a book describing her experiences there.) Dunham was both a popular entertainer and a serious artist intent on tracing the roots of Black culture. But Dunham, who was Black and held a doctorate in anthropology, had hoped to spur a "cultural awakening on the East Side," she told . [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. Claude Conyers, "Film Choreography by Katherine Dunham, 19391964," in Clark and Johnson. Katherine Dunham Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com Katherine Dunham was an American dancer and choreographer, credited to have brought the influence of Africa and the Caribbean into American dance . 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. . She was the first American dancer to present indigenous forms on a concert stage, the first to sustain a black dance company. She created and performed in works for stage, clubs, and Hollywood films; she started a school and a technique that continue to flourish; she fought unstintingly for racial justice. About Modern Dance - Jacqueline Burgess Jacqueline Burgess Legendary dancer, choreographer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham was born June 22, 1909, to an African American father and French-Canadian mother who died when she was young. Dancers are frequently instructed to place weight on the balls of their feet, lengthen their lumbar and cervical spines, and breathe from the abdomen and not the chest. She also appeared in the Broadway musicals "Bal . Katherine Dunham | Biography, Dance, Technique, Dance - Britannica The Katherine Dunham Company toured throughout North America in the mid-1940s, performing as well in the racially segregated South. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist [1]. 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. Mae C. Jemison: First African American Female Astronaut - Biography Video. Her mother passed away when Katherine was only 3 years old. [1] The Dunham Technique is still taught today. She Learned From Katherine Dunham. At 93, She's Teaching Her Technique Throughout her career, Dunham occasionally published articles about her anthropological research (sometimes under the pseudonym of Kaye Dunn) and sometimes lectured on anthropological topics at universities and scholarly societies.[27]. Katherine Dunham's Mark on Jazz Dance | Jazz Dance: A History of the Alvin Ailey, who stated that he first became interested in dance as a professional career after having seen a performance of the Katherine Dunham Company as a young teenager of 14 in Los Angeles, called the Dunham Technique "the closest thing to a unified Afro-American dance existing.". Her dance career was interrupted in 1935 when she received funding from the Rosenwald Foundation which allowed her to travel to Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad, and Haiti for eighteen months to explore each country's respective dance cultures. Dunham's last appearance on Broadway was in 1962 in Bamboche!, which included a few former Dunham dancers in the cast and a contingent of dancers and drummers from the Royal Troupe of Morocco. This was the beginning of more than 20 years during which Dunham performed with her company almost exclusively outside the United States. Dunham, Katherine | FactMonster Her work helped send astronauts to the . Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Short Biography. 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. Long, Richard A, and Joe Nash. Katherine Dunham - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help 1. 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. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . Chin, Elizabeth. Anna Kisselgoff, a dance critic for The New York Times, called Dunham "a major pioneer in Black theatrical dance ahead of her time." Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century. However, she did not seriously pursue a career in the profession until she was a student . 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. Over her long career, she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. There she met John Pratt, an artist and designer and they got married in 1941 until his death in 1986. [21] This style of participant observation research was not yet common within the discipline of anthropology. Transforming Anthropology 20 (2012): 159168. Dunham created many all-black dance groups. Birth State: Alabama. There is also a strong emphasis on training dancers in the practices of engaging with polyrhythms by simultaneously moving their upper and lower bodies according to different rhythmic patterns. 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. Katherine Dunham facts for kids. Dunham Technique was created by Katherine Dunham, a legend in the worlds of dance and anthropology. 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. Childhood & Early Life. In September 1943, under the management of the impresario Sol Hurok, her troupe opened in Tropical Review at the Martin Beck Theater. 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 . Katherine Dunham on dance anthropology. 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. Leverne Backstrom, president of the board of the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, still does. She also choreographed and starred in dance sequences in such films as Carnival of Rhythm (1942), Stormy Weather (1943), and Casbah (1947). Katherine Dunham, was published in a limited, numbered edition of 130 copies by the Institute for the Study of Social Change. Question 2. The committee voted unanimously to award $2,400 (more than $40,000 in today's money) to support her fieldwork in the Caribbean. As one of her biographers, Joyce Aschenbrenner, wrote: "anthropology became a life-way"[2] for Dunham. Katherine Dunham - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [3] Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. Othella Dallas, 93, still teaches Katherine Dunham technique, which she learned from Dunham herself. She was a woman far ahead of her time. She majored in anthropology at the University of Chicago, and after learning that much of Black . Katherine Dunham PhB'36. The finale to the first act of this show was Shango, a staged interpretation of a Vodun ritual, which became a permanent part of the company's repertory. 10 Facts About Catherine Parr | History Hit 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. Please scroll down to enjoy more supporting materials. ", "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 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]. Video. 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. Tune in & learn about the inception of. Harrison, Faye V. "Decolonizing Anthropology Moving Further Toward and Anthropology for Liberation." It next moved to the West Coast for an extended run of performances there. 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. "In introducing authentic African dance-movements to her company and audiences, Dunhamperhaps more than any other choreographer of the timeexploded the possibilities of modern dance expression.". 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. "[48] During her protest, Dick Gregory led a non-stop vigil at her home, where many disparate personalities came to show their respect, such Debbie Allen, Jonathan Demme, and Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam. Nationality. [6] At the age of 15, she organized "The Blue Moon Caf", a fundraising cabaret to raise money for Brown's Methodist Church in Joliet, where she gave her first public performance. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Katherine Dunham. Katherine Dunham | Encyclopedia.com However, after her father remarried, Albert Sr. and his new wife, Annette Poindexter Dunham, took in Katherine and her brother. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . 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. Katherine Dunham, pseudonym Kaye Dunn, (born June 22, 1909, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, U.S.died May 21, 2006, New York, New York), American dancer and choreographer who was a pioneer in the field of dance anthropology. 30 seconds. 5 Katherine Dunham facts - Katherine dunham Dunham early became interested in dance. 6 Katherine Dunham facts. Katherine Dunham Biography, Life, Interesting Facts Charm Dance from "L'Ag'Ya". Dunham continued to develop dozens of new productions during this period, and the company met with enthusiastic audiences in every city. Never completing her required coursework for her graduate degree, she departed for Broadway and Hollywood. The restructuring of heavy industry had caused the loss of many working-class jobs, and unemployment was high in the city. Biography. Katherine Mary Dunham was born in Chicago in 1909. 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 following year, she moved to East St. Louis, where she opened the Performing Arts Training Center to help the underserved community. Named Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, she was their only child. Katherine Dunham, it includes photographs highlighting the many dimensions of Dunham's life and work. In the 1930s, she did fieldwork in the Caribbean and infused her choreography with the cultures . All rights reserved. She was born on June 22, 1909 in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a small suburb of Chicago, to Albert Millard Dunham, a tailor and dry cleaner, and his wife, Fanny June Dunham.
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