Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Each procession builds on the last and focuses on conditioning the body to prepare for specific exercises that come later. Died On : May 21, 2006. Katherine Dunham Biography - Facts, Childhood, Family Life & Achievements Lyndon B. Johnson was in the audience for opening night. One of the most significant dancers, artists, and anthropologic figures of the 20th century, Katherine Dunham defied racial and gender boundaries during a . Birth City: Decatur. 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. She is best known for bringing African and Caribbean dance styles to the US [1]. for teaching dance that is still la'ag'ya , Shange , Veraruzana, nanigo. By the time she received an M.A. Her mother passed away when Katherine was only 3 years old. 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. Dana McBroom-Manno still teaches Dunham Technique in New York City and is a Master of Dunham Technique. Also Known For : . Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . From the beginning of their association, around 1938, Pratt designed the sets and every costume Dunham ever wore. Zombies, The Third Person, Intelligent Dancers, and Katherine Dunham Dunham's dance career first began in Chicago when she joined the Little Theater Company of Harper Avenue. Receiving a post graduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. [6] After her mother died, her father left the children with their aunt Lulu on Chicago's South Side. 1910-2006. Dunham accepted a position at Southern Illinois University in East St. Louis in the 1960s. In 1940, she formed the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, which became the premier facility for training dancers. Katherine Dunham Bio - Institute for Dunham Technique Certification Unlike other modern dance creators who eschewed classical ballet, Dunham embraced it as a foundation for her technique. Beda Schmid. Katherine Dunham got an early bachelor's degree in anthropology as a student at the University of Chicago. Katherine Dunham's Mark on Jazz Dance | Jazz Dance: A History of the When she was not performing, Dunham and Pratt often visited Haiti for extended stays. [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. Katherine Dunham introduced African and Caribbean rhythms to modern dance. 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. 1. Known for her many innovations, Dunham developed a dance pedagogy, later named the Dunham Technique, a style of movement and exercises based in traditional African dances, to support her choreography. The critics acknowledged the historical research she did on dance in ancient Egypt, but they were not appreciative of her choreography as staged for this production.[25]. movement and expression. 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. [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. Dunham is a ventriloquist comedian and uses seven different puppets in his act, known by his fans as the "suitcase posse." His first Comedy Central Presents special premiered in 2003. Interesting facts. 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. Her work helped send astronauts to the . Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Named Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, she was their only child. While in Haiti, she hasn't only studied Vodun rituals, but also participated and became a mambo, female high priest in the Vodun religion. Among her dancers selected were Marcia McBroom, Dana McBroom, Jean Kelly, and Jesse Oliver. 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. Decolonozing Anthropology: Katherine "the Great" Dunham Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays. [13] Under their tutelage, she showed great promise in her ethnographic studies of dance. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. 52 Copy quote. 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. Based on her research in Martinique, this three-part performance integrated elements of a Martinique fighting dance into American ballet. Glory Van Scott and Jean-Lon Destin were among other former Dunham dancers who remained her lifelong friends. Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 May 21, 2006)[1] was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. [6][10] While still a high school student, she opened a private dance school for young black children. She also choreographed and appeared in Broadway musicals, operas and the film Cabin in the Sky. In Boston, then a bastion of conservatism, the show was banned in 1944 after only one performance. He had been a promising philosophy professor at Howard University and a protg of Alfred North Whitehead. 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. A dance choreographer. About Miss Dunham - Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities 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. She choreographed for Broadway stage productions and operaincluding Aida (1963) for the New York Metropolitan Opera. [7] The family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. [36] Her classes are described as a safe haven for many and some of her students even attribute their success in life to the structure and artistry of her technical institution. for the developing one of the the world performed many of her. Among Dunham's closest friends and colleagues was Julie Robinson, formerly a performer with the Katherine Dunham Company, and her husband, singer and later political activist Harry Belafonte. 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. If Cities Could Dance: East St. Louis. Others who attended her school included James Dean, Gregory Peck, Jose Ferrer, Jennifer Jones, Shelley Winters, Sidney Poitier, Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty. and creative team that lasted. The committee voted unanimously to award $2,400 (more than $40,000 in today's money) to support her fieldwork in the Caribbean. Katherine returnedto to the usa in 1931 miss Dunham met one of. She arranged a fundraising cabaret for a Methodist Church, where she did her first public performance when she was 15 years old. [15] He showed her the connection between dance and social life giving her the momentum to explore a new area of anthropology, which she later termed "Dance Anthropology". [1] Dunham also created the Dunham Technique. 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. During her studies, Dunham attended a lecture on anthropology, where she was introduced to the concept of dance as a cultural symbol. It next moved to the West Coast for an extended run of performances there. Dunham was born in Chicago on June 22, 1909. Dunham turned anthropology into artistry - University of Chicago News 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." There she met John Pratt, an artist and designer and they got married in 1941 until his death in 1986. The impresario Sol Hurok, manager of Dunham's troupe for a time, once had Ms. Dunham's legs insured for $250,000. Fun facts. 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). [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. Called the Matriarch of Black Dance, her groundbreaking repertoire combined innovative interpretations of Caribbean dances, traditional ballet, African rituals and African American rhythms to create the Dunham Technique, which she performed with her dance troupe in venues around the world. 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. Early in 1936, she arrived in Haiti, where she remained for several months, the first of her many extended stays in that country through her life. 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. Actress: Star Spangled Rhythm. Katherine Dunham. 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. In 1963, Dunham became the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. Video. After noticing that Katherine enjoyed working and socializing with people, her brother suggested that she study Anthropology. 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. Time reported that, "she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest the U.S.'s forced repatriation of Haitian refugees. She wanted to know not only how people danced but why they dance. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) is revered as one of the great pillars of American dance history. As a result, Dunham would later experience some diplomatic "difficulties" on her tours. 4 (December 2010): 640642. Artists are necessary to social justice movements; they are the ones who possess a gift to see beyond the bleak present and imagine a better future. It opened in Chicago in 1933, with a black cast and with Page dancing the title role. She taught dance lessons to help pay for her education at the University of Chicago. "Hoy programa extraordinario y el sbado dos estamos nos ofrece Katherine Dunham,", Constance Valis Hill, "Katherine Dunham's, Anna Kisselgoff, "Katherine Dunham's Legacy, Visible in Youth and Age,". She died a month before her 97th birthday.[53]. "Katherine Dunham: Decolonizing Anthropology Through African American Dance Pedagogy." Katherine Dunham: The Artist as Activist | Center for the Humanities 47 Copy quote. In 1986 the American Anthropological Association gave her a Distinguished Service Award. 288 pages, Hardcover. They had particular success in Denmark and France. Born in Glen Ellyn, IL #6. She was also consulted on costuming for the Egyptian and Ethiopian dress. All You Need to Know About Dunham Technique. 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. Katherine Dunham - Dancing with History He continued as her artistic collaborator until his death in 1986. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. After the 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Dunham encouraged gang members in the ghetto to come to the center to use drumming and dance to vent their frustrations.
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