katherine dunham fun facts

She also developed the Dunham Technique, a method of movement to support her dance works. Dancer. 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." In Boston, then a bastion of conservatism, the show was banned in 1944 after only one performance. ", Richard Buckle, ballet historian and critic, wrote: "Her company of magnificent dancers and musicians met with the success it has and that herself as explorer, thinker, inventor, organizer, and dancer should have reached a place in the estimation of the world, has done more than a million pamphlets could for the service of her people. Kraft from the story by Jerry Horwin and Seymour B. Robinson, directed by Andrew L. Stone, produced by William LeBaron and starring Lena Horne, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Cab Calloway.The film is one of two Hollywood musicals with an African . 7 Katherine Dunham facts. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in African-American and European theater of the 20th . [6] After her mother died, her father left the children with their aunt Lulu on Chicago's South Side. 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. 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. Fighting, Alive, Have Faith. In 1967 she officially retired, after presenting a final show at the famous Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York. The Dunham Technique Ballet African Dancing Her favorite color was platinum Caribbean Dancing Her favorite food was Filet of Sole How she started out Ballet African Dance Caribbean Dance The Dunham Technique wasn't so much as a technique so Photo provided by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Morris Library Special Collections Research Center. 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. 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. In 1963, Dunham became the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. The incident was widely discussed in the Brazilian press and became a hot political issue. Dunham also created the well-known Dunham Technique [1]. Katherine Dunham: The Artist as Activist During World War II. Through much study and time, she eventually became one of the founders of the field of dance anthropology. Actress: Star Spangled Rhythm. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] [2] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. [6][10] While still a high school student, she opened a private dance school for young black children. Episode 5 of Break the FACTS! 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. "The Case for Letting Anthropology Burn: Sociocultural Anthropology in 2019." from the University of Chicago, she had acquired a vast knowledge of the dances and rituals of the Black peoples of tropical America. 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. The company soon embarked on a tour of venues in South America, Europe, and North Africa. 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. 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. However, it has now became a common practice within the discipline. Named Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, she was their only child. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) was a world-renowned choreographer who broke many barriers of race and gender, most notably as an African American woman whose dance company toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia for several decades. She . By Renata Sago. Katherine Dunham was an African-American dancer and choreographer, producer, author, scholar, anthropologist and Civil Rights activist. From the beginning of their association, around 1938, Pratt designed the sets and every costume Dunham ever wore. . In 1945, Dunham opened and directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance and Theatre near Times Square in New York City. 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. 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. [22] Fun Facts. At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. 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 . 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. [3] Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. [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. [14] Redfield, Herskovits, and Sapir's contributions to cultural anthropology, exposed Dunham to topics and ideas that inspired her creatively and professionally. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology Through African American Dance Pedagogy. As one of her biographers, Joyce Aschenbrenner, wrote: "Today, it is safe to say, there is no American black dancer who has not been influenced by the Dunham Technique, unless he or she works entirely within a classical genre",[2] and the Dunham Technique is still taught to anyone who studies modern dance. Search input Search submit button. Numerous scholars describe Dunham as pivotal to the fields of Dance Education, Applied Anthropology, Humanistic Anthropology, African Diasporic Anthropology and Liberatory Anthropology. In recognition of her stance, President Aristide later awarded her a medal of Haiti's highest honor. [28] Strongly founded in her anthropological research in the Caribbean, Dunham technique introduces rhythm as the backbone of various widely known modern dance principles including contraction and release,[29] groundedness, fall and recover,[30] counterbalance, and many more. The show created a minor controversy in the press. Katherine Dunham predated, pioneered, and demonstrated new ways of doing and envisioning Anthropology six decades ahead of the discipline. [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. Her technique was "a way of life". In 1947 it was expanded and granted a charter as the Katherine Dunham School of Cultural Arts. The PATC teaching staff was made up of former members of Dunham's touring company, as well as local residents. [54] Her legacy within Anthropology and Dance Anthropology continues to shine with each new day. These experiences provided ample material for the numerous books, articles and short stories Dunham authored. Later that year she took her troupe to Mexico, where their performances were so popular that they stayed and performed for more than two months. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Her work helped send astronauts to the . 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. During her studies, Dunham attended a lecture on anthropology, where she was introduced to the concept of dance as a cultural symbol. [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 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. One example of this was studying how dance manifests within Haitian Vodou. [41] The State Department was dismayed by the negative view of American society that the ballet presented to foreign audiences. 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. [52], On May 21, 2006, Dunham died in her sleep from natural causes in New York City. April 30, 2019. Many of her students, trained in her studios in Chicago and New York City, became prominent in the field of modern dance. 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]. Digital Library. He needn't have bothered. Intrigued by this theory, Dunham began to study African roots of dance and, in 1935, she traveled to the Caribbean for field research. Although it was well received by the audience, local censors feared that the revealing costumes and provocative dances might compromise public morals. Radcliffe-Brown, Fred Eggan, and many others that she met in and around the University of Chicago. "Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology." 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. Her father was a descendant of slaves from West Africa, and her mother was a mix of French-Canadian and Native-American heritage. Katherine Dunham, it includes photographs highlighting the many dimensions of Dunham's life and work. Others who attended her school included James Dean, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Jennifer Jones, Shelley Winters, Sidney Poitier, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. 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. Dunham Company member Dana McBroom-Manno was selected as a featured artist in the show, which played on the Music Fair Circuit. Her mother passed away when Katherine was only 3 years old. She died a month before her 97th birthday.[53]. She also choreographed and starred in dance sequences in such films as Carnival of Rhythm (1942), Stormy Weather (1943), and Casbah (1947). After noticing that Katherine enjoyed working and socializing with people, her brother suggested that she study Anthropology. Dunham also studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima ballerina of the Chicago Opera. Dancer Born in Illinois #12. [7] The family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois. Her fieldwork inspired her innovative interpretations of dance in the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. 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. Ruth Page had written a scenario and choreographed La Guiablesse ("The Devil Woman"), based on a Martinican folk tale in Lafcadio Hearn's Two Years in the French West Indies. A photographic exhibit honoring her achievements, entitled Kaiso! One of the most significant dancers, artists, and anthropologic figures of the 20th century, Katherine Dunham defied racial and gender boundaries during a . 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. 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. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . This gained international headlines and the embarrassed local police officials quickly released her. Other Interesting Katherine Dunham Facts And Trivia 'Come Back To Arizona', a short story Katherine Dunham penned when she was 12 years old, was published in 1921 in volume two of 'The Brownies' Book'. 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. Back in the United States she formed an all-black dance troupe, which in 1940 performed her Tropics and Le Jazz . She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." katherine dunham fun factsaiken county sc register of deeds katherine dunham fun facts She returned to graduate school and submitted a master's thesis to the anthropology faculty. (She later wrote Journey to Accompong, a book describing her experiences there.) 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. [1] The Dunham Technique is still taught today. - Pic Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images. Later Dunham established a second home in Senegal, and she occasionally returned there to scout for talented African musicians and dancers. Dancer, choreographer, composer and songwriter, educated at the University of Chicago. 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. 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. Kraut, Anthea. [49] In fact, that ceremony was not recognized as a legal marriage in the United States, a point of law that would come to trouble them some years later. While trying to help the young people in the community, Dunham was arrested. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Most Popular #73650. While Dunham was recognized as "unofficially" representing American cultural life in her foreign tours, she was given very little assistance of any kind by the U.S. State Department. 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]. While in Haiti, she hasn't only studied Vodun rituals, but also participated and became a mambo, female high priest in the Vodun religion. [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. 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.". Together, they produced the first version of her dance composition L'Ag'Ya, which premiered on January 27, 1938, as a part of the Federal Theater Project in Chicago. 1910-2006. Corrections? Dunham herself was quietly involved in both the Voodoo and Orisa communities of the Caribbean and the United States, in particular with the Lucumi tradition. Receiving a post graduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. [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. At the recommendation of her mentor Melville Herskovits, PhB'20a Northwestern University anthropologist and African studies expertDunham's calling cards read both "dancer" and . What are some fun facts about Katherine Dunham? Anthropology News 33, no. The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance. When she was not performing, Dunham and Pratt often visited Haiti for extended stays. Omissions? 30 seconds. Pas de Deux from "L'Ag'Ya". In 1963 Dunham was commissioned to choreograph Aida at New York's Metropolitan Opera Company, with Leontyne Price in the title role. 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. 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. Birth Country: United States. 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." She wanted to know not only how people danced but why they dance. Choreographer. [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. There, he ran a dry cleaning business in a place mostly occupied by white people. 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. [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. She also choreographed and appeared in Broadway musicals, operas and the film Cabin in the Sky. most important pedagogues original work which includes :Batuada. Born in 1909 #28. Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays. 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. 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. Katherine Dunham. On graduating with a bachelors degree in anthropology she undertook field studies in the Caribbean and in Brazil. In 1935, Dunham received grants to conduct fieldwork in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Haiti to study Afro-Caribbean dance and other rituals. Another fact is that it was the sometime home of the pioneering black American dancer Katherine Dunham. Katherine Dunham and John Pratt married in 1949 to adopt Marie-Christine, a French 14-month-old baby. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. She directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York, and was artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. [1] Dunham also created the Dunham Technique. Please scroll down to enjoy more supporting materials. You can't learn about dances until you learn about people. Later in the year she opened a cabaret show in Las Vegas, during the first year that the city became a popular entertainment as well as gambling destination. Over the years Katherine Dunham has received scores of special awards, including more than a dozen honorary doctorates from various American universities. Alumnae include Eartha Kitt, Marlon Brando and Julie Belafonte. Video footage of Dunham technique classes show a strong emphasis on anatomical alignment, breath, and fluidity. [61][62][63][64] During this time, in addition to Dunham, numerous Black women such as Zora Neal Hurston, Caroline Bond Day, Irene Diggs, and Erna Brodber were also working to transform the discipline into an anthropology of liberation: employing critical and creative cultural production.[54]. 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. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, . A carriage house on the grounds is to . For several years, Dunham's personal assistant and press promoter was Maya Deren, who later also became interested in Vodun and wrote The Divine Horseman: The Voodoo Gods of Haiti (1953). Her work inspired many. 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]. 3 (1992): 24. Through her ballet teachers, she was also exposed to Spanish, East Indian, Javanese, and Balinese dance forms.[23]. "Katherine Dunham's Dance as Public Anthropology. As a student, she studied under anthropologists such as A.R. She expressed a hope that time and the "war for tolerance and democracy" (this was during World War II) would bring a change. Her many original works include Lagya, Shango and Bal Negre. 2 (2020): 259271. In 1978, an anthology of writings by and about her, also entitled Kaiso! In 1986 the American Anthropological Association gave her a Distinguished Service Award. Facts about Alvin Ailey talk about the famous African-American activist and choreographer. Lyndon B. Johnson was in the audience for opening night. Classes are led by Ruby Streate, director of dance and education and artistic director of the Katherine Dunham Children's Workshop. 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 was one of the first researchers in anthropology to use her research of Afro-Haitian dance and culture for remedying racist misrepresentation of African culture in the miseducation of Black Americans. [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. Keep reading for more such interesting quotes at Kidadl!) American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist. [51] The couple had officially adopted their foster daughter, a 14-month-old girl they had found as an infant in a Roman Catholic convent nursery in Fresnes, France. Not only did Dunham shed light on the cultural value of black dance, but she clearly contributed to changing perceptions of blacks in America by showing society that as a black woman, she could be an intelligent scholar, a beautiful dancer, and a skilled choreographer. Katherine Dunham or the "Matriarch of Black Dance'' as many called her, was a revolutionary African American anthropologist and professional dancer. Died On : May 21, 2006. This was followed by television spectaculars filmed in London, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Sydney, and Mexico City. She also appeared in the Broadway musicals "Bal . 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. Writings by and about Katherine Dunham" , Katherine Dunham, 2005. As a graduate student in anthropology in the mid-1930s, she conducted dance research in the Caribbean. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. Dunham technique is a codified dance training technique developed by Katherine Dunham in the mid 20th century. The restructuring of heavy industry had caused the loss of many working-class jobs, and unemployment was high in the city. Deren is now considered to be a pioneer of independent American filmmaking. Among her dancers selected were Marcia McBroom, Dana McBroom, Jean Kelly, and Jesse Oliver. Chin, Elizabeth. The program she created runs to this day at the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, revolutionizing lives with dance and culture. Our site is COPPA and kidSAFE-certified, so you can rest assured it's a safe place for kids . But Dunham, who was Black and held a doctorate in anthropology, had hoped to spur a "cultural awakening on the East Side," she told . In 1964, Dunham settled in East St. Louis, and took up the post of artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in nearby Edwardsville. Katherine Dunham died on May 21 2006. Dunham technique is also inviting to the influence of cultural movement languages outside of dance including karate and capoeira.[36]. 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. 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. In the 1970s, scholars of Anthropology such as Dell Hymes and William S. Willis began to discuss Anthropology's participation in scientific colonialism. It closed after only 38 performances. Dunham accepted a position at Southern Illinois University in East St. Louis in the 1960s.

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