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. Katherine Dunham. Her field work in the Caribbean began in Jamaica, where she lived for several months in the remote Maroon village of Accompong, deep in the mountains of Cockpit Country. She also developed the Dunham Technique, a method of movement to support her dance works. Katherine Dunham introduced African and Caribbean rhythms to modern dance. Charm Dance from "L'Ag'Ya". Video. By Renata Sago. She expressed a hope that time and the "war for tolerance and democracy" (this was during World War II) would bring a change. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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). Katherine Dunham on dance anthropology. Later Dunham established a second home in Senegal, and she occasionally returned there to scout for talented African musicians and dancers. Dunham accepted a position at Southern Illinois University in East St. Louis in the 1960s. Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Named Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, she was their only child. In 1967 she officially retired, after presenting a final show at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. American Anthropologist 122, no. She built her own dance empire and was hailed as the queen of black dance. 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. Katherine Dunham: The Artist as Activist During World War II. Her choreography and performances made use of a concept within Dance Anthropology called "research-to-performance". 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. During her tenure, she secured funding for the Performing Arts Training Center, where she introduced a program designed to channel the energy of the communitys youth away from gangs and into dance. She was also consulted on costuming for the Egyptian and Ethiopian dress. Katherine Dunham Biography - Facts, Childhood, Family Life & Achievements Katherine Dunham is the inventor of the Dunham technique and a renowned dancer and choreographer of African-American descent. Katherine Dunham | YourDictionary In 1945, Dunham opened and directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance and Theatre near Times Square in New York City. Fun facts about Julie Belafonte brought to you by IDTC! Text: Julie He needn't have bothered. Dunham also studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima ballerina of the Chicago Opera. A actor. A dance choreographer. The next year, after the US entered World War II, Dunham appeared in the Paramount musical film Star Spangled Rhythm (1942) in a specialty number, "Sharp as a Tack," with Eddie "Rochester" Anderson. In 1938 she joined the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago and composed a ballet, LAgYa, based on Caribbean dance. "Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham". Last Name Dunham #5. After the tour, in 1945, the Dunham company appeared in the short-lived Blue Holiday at the Belasco Theater in New York, and in the more successful Carib Song at the Adelphi Theatre. The Washington Post called her "dancer Katherine the Great." Dunham was active in human rights causes, and in 1992 she staged a 47-day hunger strike to highlight the plight of Haitian refugees. The PATC teaching staff was made up of former members of Dunham's touring company, as well as local residents. The highly respected Dance magazine did a feature cover story on Dunham in August 2000 entitled "One-Woman Revolution". The Dunham company's international tours ended in Vienna in 1960. Biography of Jeff Dunham, Comedian and Ventriloquist 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. 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. For almost 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time. Video footage of Dunham technique classes show a strong emphasis on anatomical alignment, breath, and fluidity. 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. Check out this biography to know about his childhood, family life, achievements and fun facts about him. for the developing one of the the world performed many of her. Katherine Dunham's Biography - The HistoryMakers [11], During her time in Chicago, Dunham enjoyed holding social gatherings and inviting visitors to her apartment. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist [1]. Harrison, Faye V. "Decolonizing Anthropology Moving Further Toward and Anthropology for Liberation." Using some ballet vernacular, Dunham incorporates these principles into a set of class exercises she labeled as "processions". The company returned to New York. 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. 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. Transforming Anthropology 20, no. Katherine Dunham: legendary dancer who founded the 1st American black She also continued refining and teaching the Dunham Technique to transmit that knowledge to succeeding generations of dance students. 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. Stormy Weather (1943 film) - Wikipedia Dancer, anthropologist, social worker, activist, author. On another occasion, in October 1944, after getting a rousing standing ovation in Louisville, Kentucky, she told the all-white audience that she and her company would not return because "your management will not allow people like you to sit next to people like us." 8 Katherine Dunham facts. Kantherine Dunham passed away of natural causes on May 21, 2006, one month before her 97th birthday. Over her long career, she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. Additionally, she worked closely with Vera Mirova who specialized in "Oriental" dance. Dana McBroom-Manno still teaches Dunham Technique in New York City and is a Master of Dunham Technique. These exercises prepare the dancers for African social and spiritual dances[31] that are practiced later in the class including the Mahi,[32] Yonvalou,[33] and Congo Paillette. Katherine Dunham - Author, Career, Childhood - Katherine Dunham Biography Throughout her distinguished career, Dunham earned numerous honorary doctorates, awards and honors. Dunham had been invited to stage a new number for the popular, long-running musical revue Pins and Needles 1940, produced by the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. At the height of her career in the 1940s and 1950s, Dunham was renowned throughout Europe and Latin America and was widely popular in the United States. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology through African American Dance Pedagogy." Dunham turned anthropology into artistry - University of Chicago News 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.". Dunham early became interested in dance. While in Haiti, Dunham investigated Vodun rituals and made extensive research notes, particularly on the dance movements of the participants. Katherine Johnson | Biography, Education, Accomplishments, & Facts [4] In 1938, using materials collected ethnographic fieldwork, Dunham submitted a thesis, The Dances of Haiti: A Study of Their Material Aspect, Organization, Form, and Function,. In 1946, Dunham returned to Broadway for a revue entitled Bal Ngre, which received glowing notices from theater and dance critics. 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. forming a powerful personal. Time reported that, "she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest the U.S.'s forced repatriation of Haitian refugees. What are some fun facts about Katherine Dunham? Katherine Dunham was a rebel among rebels. 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. 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]. 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." Katherine Dunham and the dances of the African diaspora 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. On February 22, 2022, Selkirk will offer a unique, one-lot auction titled, Divine Technique: Katherine Dunham Ephemera And Documents. "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.". Dance is an essential part of life that has always been with me. 10 Facts About Katherine Johnson - Mental Floss 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. [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. Katherine Dunham predated, pioneered, and demonstrated new ways of doing and envisioning Anthropology six decades ahead of the discipline. "The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn: Sociocultural Anthropology in 2019." Katherine Dunham PhB'36. She directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York, and was artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. (Below are 10 Katherine Dunham quotes on positivity. 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. 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. [59] She ultimately chose to continue her career in dance without her master's degree in anthropology. [54] After recovering crucial dance epistemologies relevant to people of the African diaspora during her ethnographic research, she applied anthropological knowledge toward developing her own dance pedagogy (Dunham Technique) that worked to reconcile with the legacy of colonization and racism and correct sociocultural injustices. 10 Facts about Alvin Ailey - Fact File 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. [1] The Dunham Technique is still taught today. ..American Anthropologist.. 112, no.