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 . From the 40s to the 60s, Dunham and her dance troupe toured to 57 countries of the world. 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. Tropics (choreographed 1937) and Le Jazz Hot (1938) were among the earliest of many works based on her research. She and her company frequently had difficulties finding adequate accommodations while on tour because in many regions of the country, black Americans were not allowed to stay at hotels. [16], After her research tour of the Caribbean in 1935, Dunham returned to Chicago in the late spring of 1936. She also continued refining and teaching the Dunham Technique to transmit that knowledge to succeeding generations of dance students. 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]. At this time Dunham first became associated with designer John Pratt, whom she later married. Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays. In 1945, Dunham opened and directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance and Theatre near Times Square in New York City. A carriage house on the grounds is to . Two Avant-Garde Women Who Took Big Risks in Chicago's Art Scene She was hailed for her smooth and fluent choreography and dominated a stage with what has been described as 'an unmitigating radiant force providing beauty with a feminine touch full of variety and nuance. 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. . Her technique was "a way of life". Her popular books are Island Possessed (1969), Touch of Innocence (1959), Dances of Haiti (1983), Kaiso! [1] She is best known for bringing African and Caribbean dance styles to the US. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . 1. - Pic Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images. In 1978 Dunham was featured in the PBS special, Divine Drumbeats: Katherine Dunham and Her People, narrated by James Earl Jones, as part of the Dance in America series. Her mother, Fanny June Dunham, who, according to Dunham's memoir, possessed Indian, French Canadian, English and probably African ancestry, died when Dunham was four years old. She also danced professionally, owned a dance company, and operated a dance studio. She was a pioneer of Dance Anthropology, established methodologies of ethnochoreology, and her work gives essential historical context to current conversations and practices of decolonization within and outside of the discipline of anthropology. Katherine Dunham Quotes On Positivity. 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. While in Haiti, she hasn't only studied Vodun rituals, but also participated and became a mambo, female high priest in the Vodun religion. for the developing one of the the world performed many of her. He was the founder of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City. Using some ballet vernacular, Dunham incorporates these principles into a set of class exercises she labeled as "processions". Jeff Dunham hails from Dallas, Texas. THE DIGITAL REPOSITORY FOR THE BLACK EXPERIENCE. One example of this was studying how dance manifests within Haitian Vodou. One recurring theme that I really . But what set her work even further apart from Martha Graham and Jos Limn was her fusion of that foundation with Afro-Caribbean styles. forming a powerful personal. 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. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist [1]. 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. 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. April 30, 2019. Birth date: October 17, 1956. He started doing stand-up comedy in the late 1980s. Updates? Nationality. The incident was widely discussed in the Brazilian press and became a hot political issue. Dunham is still taught at widely recognized dance institutions such as The American Dance Festival and The Ailey School. 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. Upon returning to Chicago, the company performed at the Goodman Theater and at the Abraham Lincoln Center. Katherine Dunham: legendary dancer who founded the 1st American black Katherine Dunham: The Artist as Activist | Center for the Humanities As a teenager, she won a scholarship to the Dunham school and later became a dancer with the company, before beginning her successful singing career. However, she did not seriously pursue a career in the profession until she was a student at the University of Chicago. She wrote that he "opened the floodgates of anthropology" for her. In 1938 she joined the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago and composed a ballet, LAgYa, based on Caribbean dance. Katherine Dunham Biography, Life, Interesting Facts Dunham became interested in both writing and dance at a young age. Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century. [17] She was one of the first African-American women to attend this college and to earn these degrees. TOP 25 QUOTES BY KATHERINE DUNHAM | A-Z Quotes Katherine Dunham got an early bachelor's degree in anthropology as a student at the University of Chicago. They had particular success in Denmark and France. But Dunham, who was Black and held a doctorate in anthropology, had hoped to spur a "cultural awakening on the East Side," she told . Katherine Dunham PhB'36. Unlike other modern dance creators who eschewed classical ballet, Dunham embraced it as a foundation for her technique. With Dunham in the sultry role of temptress Georgia Brown, the show ran for 20 weeks in New York. 288 pages, Hardcover. The living Dunham tradition has persisted. In August she was awarded a bachelor's degree, a Ph.B., bachelor of philosophy, with her principal area of study being social anthropology. Katherine Dunham died on May 21 2006. Katherine Dunham Birthday & Fun Facts | Kidadl About Miss Dunham - Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities until hia death in the 1986. [20] She recorded her findings through ethnographic fieldnotes and by learning dance techniques, music and song, alongside her interlocutors. Over her long career, she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. The group performed Dunham's Negro Rhapsody at the Chicago Beaux Arts Ball. 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. Also Known For : . Dancer, choreographer, composer and songwriter, educated at the University of Chicago. [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. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264871.003.0001, "Dunham Technique: Fall and recovery with body roll", "Katherine Dunham on need for Dunham Technique", "The Negro Problem in a Class Society: 19511960 Brazil", "Katherine Dunham, Dance Icon, Dies at 96", "Candace Award Recipients 19821990, Page 1", "Katherine the Great: 2004 Lifetime Achievement Awardee Katherine Dunham", Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology, Katherine Dunham on her anthropological films, Guide to the Photograph Collection on Katherine Dunham, Katherine Dunham's oral history video excerpts, "Katherine Dunham on Overcoming 1940s Racism", Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, Recalling Choreographer and Activist Dunham, "How Katherine Dunham Revealed Black Dance to the World", Katherine Dunham, Dance Pioneer, Dies at 96, "On Stage and Backstage withTalented Katherine Dunham, Master Dance Designer", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katherine_Dunham&oldid=1139015494, American people of French-Canadian descent, 20th-century African-American politicians, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox person with multiple spouses, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, In 1971 she received the Heritage Award from the, In 1983 she was a recipient of one of the highest artistic awards in the United States, the. Educate, entertain, and engage with Factmonster. On one of these visits, during the late 1940s, she purchased a large property of more than seven hectares (approximately 17.3 acres) in the Carrefours suburban area of Port-au-Prince, known as Habitation Leclerc. Some Facts. Dunham and her company appeared in the Hollywood movie Casbah (1948) with Tony Martin, Yvonne De Carlo, and Peter Lorre, and in the Italian film Botta e Risposta, produced by Dino de Laurentiis. 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 . In 1963, Dunham became the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. Katherine Dunham and her Haitian legacy - Dance Australia American dancer and choreographer (19092006). Dunham was active in human rights causes, and in 1992 she staged a 47-day hunger strike to highlight the plight of Haitian refugees. In 1931, at the age of 21, Dunham formed a group called Ballets Ngres, one of the first black ballet companies in the United States. There she met John Pratt, an artist and designer and they got married in 1941 until his death in 1986. Video. 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. Stormy Weather (1943 film) - Wikipedia See "Selected Bibliography of Writings by Katherine Dunham" in Clark and Johnson. There, he ran a dry cleaning business in a place mostly occupied by white people. A photographic exhibit honoring her achievements, entitled Kaiso! Chin, Elizabeth. Birth Country: United States. 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). [6] After her mother died, her father left the children with their aunt Lulu on Chicago's South Side. New York City, U.S. She also created several other works of choreography, including The Emperor Jones (a response to the play by Eugene O'Neill) and Barrelhouse. 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. She was also consulted on costuming for the Egyptian and Ethiopian dress. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. "Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology." Dunham turned anthropology into artistry - University of Chicago News 2 (2020): 259271. Katherine Mary Dunham, 22 Jun 1909 - 21 May 2006 Exhibition Label Born Glen Ellyn, Illinois One of the founders of the anthropological dance movement, Katherine Dunham distilled Caribbean and African dance elements into modern American choreography. In 1976, Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. 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 committee voted unanimously to award $2,400 (more than $40,000 in today's money) to support her fieldwork in the Caribbean. Dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham was born on June 22, 1910, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a small suburb of . most important pedagogues original work which includes :Batuada. The company returned to New York. Among her dancers selected were Marcia McBroom, Dana McBroom, Jean Kelly, and Jesse Oliver. Katherine Dunham | Encyclopedia.com for teaching dance that is still la'ag'ya , Shange , Veraruzana, nanigo. By the time she received an M.A. [35] In a different interview, Dunham describes her technique "as a way of life,[36]" a sentiment that seems to be shared by many of her admiring students. Numerous scholars describe Dunham as pivotal to the fields of Dance Education, Applied Anthropology, Humanistic Anthropology, African Diasporic Anthropology and Liberatory Anthropology. [7] The family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois. During her studies, Dunham attended a lecture on anthropology, where she was introduced to the concept of dance as a cultural symbol. [54] This wave continued throughout the 1990s with scholars publishing works (such as Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further in Anthropology for Liberation,[55] Decolonizing Methodologies,[56] and more recently, The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn[57]) that critique anthropology and the discipline's roles in colonial knowledge production and power structures. katherine dunham fun factsaiken county sc register of deeds katherine dunham fun facts At the recommendation of her mentor Melville Herskovits, PhB'20a Northwestern University anthropologist and African studies expertDunham's calling cards read both "dancer" and . Katherine was also an activist, author, educator, and anthropologist. For almost 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time. The Dunham company's international tours ended in Vienna in 1960. The school was managed in Dunham's absence by Syvilla Fort, one of her dancers, and thrived for about 10 years. Her work helped send astronauts to the . ", Examples include: The Ballet in film "Stormy Weather" (Stone 1943) and "Mambo" (Rossen 1954). and creative team that lasted. USA. Dunham also studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima ballerina of the Chicago Opera. 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. After her company performed successfully, Dunham was chosen as dance director of the Chicago Negro Theater Unit of the Federal Theatre Project. It was not a success, closing after only eight performances. Her alumni included many future celebrities, such as Eartha Kitt. 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". Never completing her required coursework for her graduate degree, she departed for Broadway and Hollywood. A dance choreographer. Dancer. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The first work, entitled A Touch of Innocence: Memoirs of Childhood, was published in 1959. Katherine Dunham is the inventor of the Dunham technique and a renowned dancer and choreographer of African-American descent. . 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. Grow your vocab the fun way! 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. London: Zed Books, 1999. [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. Another fact is that it was the sometime home of the pioneering black American dancer Katherine Dunham. teaches us about the impact Katherine Dunham left on the dance community & on the world. Katherine Dunham, it includes photographs highlighting the many dimensions of Dunham's life and work. It closed after only 38 performances. Katherine Dunham - IMDb 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. Although it was well received by the audience, local censors feared that the revealing costumes and provocative dances might compromise public morals. Pas de Deux from "L'Ag'Ya". Kaiso is an Afro-Caribbean term denoting praise. Childhood & Early Life. 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. 2023 The HistoryMakers. In 1949, Dunham returned from international touring with her company for a brief stay in the United States, where she suffered a temporary nervous breakdown after the premature death of her beloved brother Albert. Anna Kisselgoff, a dance critic for The New York Times, called Dunham "a major pioneer in Black theatrical dance ahead of her time." Her work inspired many. Receiving a post graduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. 10 Facts About Catherine Parr | History Hit Her mission was to help train the Senegalese National Ballet and to assist President Leopold Senghor with arrangements for the First Pan-African World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar (196566). 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. Zombies, The Third Person, Intelligent Dancers, and Katherine Dunham Katherine Dunham by:Miracle | Other Quiz - Quizizz At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. 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. 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. Dunham, Katherine | FactMonster Leverne Backstrom, president of the board of the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, still does. 8 Katherine Dunham facts - Katherine dunham Others who attended her school included James Dean, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Jennifer Jones, Shelley Winters, Sidney Poitier, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty. Dunham Company member Dana McBroom-Manno was selected as a featured artist in the show, which played on the Music Fair Circuit. As I document in my book Katherine Dunham: Dance and the . 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. Barrelhouse. 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). Alvin Ailey later produced a tribute for her in 198788 at Carnegie Hall with his American Dance Theater, entitled The Magic of Katherine Dunham. 30 seconds. Katherine returnedto to the usa in 1931 miss Dunham met one of. 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. Dunham passed away on Sunday, May 21, 2006 at the age of 96. Kraut, Anthea. 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. Dunham considered some really important and interesting issues, like how class and race issues translate internationally, being accepted into new communities, different types of being black, etc.
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