Katherine Dunham
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Katherine Mary Dunham (22 June 1909 – 21 May 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, and songwriter who was trained as an anthropologist. Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of Dance Anthropology, or Ethnochoreology (see also Dance Studies).
Background and anthropology
Dunham was born in Joliet, Illinois. She studied both dance and anthropology while an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Chicago during the 1930s. She showed great promise in her ethnographic studies of dance and studied under the great anthropologists of the day, Robert Redfield, A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Edward Sapir, and Bronislaw Malinowski. In 1936, she was awarded a Rosenwald Travel Fellowship to conduct ethnographic study of the Vodun in the West Indies, a path also followed by fellow anthropology student, Zora Neale Hurston [link].While working on her masters, she was told by her advisors that she had to choose between anthropology and dance. Much to their regret, she chose dance, left her graduate studies before finishing her doctorate, and departed for Hollywood, where she made a number of films before forming her own company.
Career, family, and politics
Dunham married producer John Thomas Pratt [link], who managed her career. Pratt, who was white, was the son of John M. Pratt. The senior Pratt had led the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers, which organized a tax strike in Chicago during the early 1930s. Dunham also began the Katherine Dunham Company, a troupe of dancers, singers, actors and musicians, which was the first African American modern dance company. The company toured worldwide and in the then segregated South, where Ms. Dunham once refused to hold a show after finding out that the city’s black residents had not been allowed to buy tickets for the performance.Dunham later directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York City and was an artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. Dunham was also known for her anthropological work in studies into Haitian and Caribbean culture.
In 1967, Dunham opened the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East St. Louis, Illinois as an attempt to use the arts to combat poverty and urban unrest. The PATC drew on former members of Dunham's touring company as well as local residents for its teaching staff.
Known for her many innovations, the Dunham Technique is now taught as a modern dance style in dance schools, including at the Harkness Dance Center of the 92nd Street Y.
Time Magazine reported that at age 82, "she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest the U.S.'s forced repatriation of Haitian refugees. 'My job,' she said, 'is to create a useful legacy.'" [link]
Katherine Dunham died in her sleep in New York City on 21 May 2006.
Awards
- In 1979 at Carnegie Hall, Dunham received the Albert Schweitzer Music Award "for a life's work dedicated to music and devoted to humanity."
- In 1989, Dunham was [awarded a National Medal of Arts], an honor shared by only two other University of Chicago alumni, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth.
- Dunham has her own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Books
- Island Possessed -1969
- A Touch of Innocence -1959
- Dances of Haiti -1947
- Journey to Accompong -1946
Filmography
- Música en la noche (1958)
- Mambo (1954)
- Casbah (1948)
- Cuban Episode (1944)
- Stormy Weather (1943)
- Carnival of Rhythm (1941)
Obituaries
- [Pioneering dancer Dunham dies at 96] - CNN
- [Recalling Choreographer and Activist Dunham] - NPR
- [How Katherine Dunham Revealed Black Dance to the World] -''New York Times
- [Katherine Dunham was dancer, activist, teacher] - Chicago Tribune
- [Katherine Dunham, Dance Pioneer, Dies at 96] Playbill
- [Dancer Katherine Dunham dies] - St. Louis Dispatch
References
- Aschenbrenner, Joyce, Katherine Dunham: Dancing a Life. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
- Clark, VeVe, and Johnson, Sara E., Kaiso! Writings By and About Katherine Dunham. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.
- Haskins, James, Katherine Dunham. New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1982.
- Hill, Constance, "Katherine Dunham's 'Southland': Protest in the Face of Repression," in Dancing Many Drums: Excavations in African American Dance, ed. Thomas F. DeFrantz. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
- Kraut, Anthea, "Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham," Theatre Journal 55 (2003): 433–50.
External links
- [Kennedy Center biography]
- [Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities], East St. Louis, Illinois
- [Women's International Center biography]
- [The Katherine Dunham Collection]
- [PBS]
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