Stormy Weather (1943 film) - Wikipedia You can't learn about dances until you learn about people. Kaiso is an Afro-Caribbean term denoting praise. Another fact is that it was the sometime home of the pioneering black American dancer Katherine Dunham. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200003840/. Video. There she was able to bring anthropologists, sociologists, educational specialists, scientists, writers, musicians, and theater people together to create a liberal arts curriculum that would be a foundation for further college work. 3 (1992): 24. 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. [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. As a choreographer, anthropologist, educator, and activist, Katherine Dunham transformed the field of dance in the twentieth century. Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, creator of the Dunham Technique, author, educator, anthropologist, and social activist. forming a powerful personal. She built her own dance empire and was hailed as the queen of black dance. He has released six stand-up specials and one album of Christmas songs. [3] Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. Her technique was "a way of life". 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 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. Who Was Katherine Dunham??? by Adrianne Hoopes - Prezi Banks, Ojeya Cruz. This gained international headlines and the embarrassed local police officials quickly released her. Katherine returnedto to the usa in 1931 miss Dunham met one of. [26] This work was never produced in Joplin's lifetime, but since the 1970s, it has been successfully produced in many venues. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance." 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. Video. Beautiful, Justice, Black. 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. 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. The company was located on the property that formerly belonged to the Isadora Duncan Dance in Caravan Hill but subsequently moved to W 43rd Street. Katherine Dunham. Dunham, Katherine | FactMonster In 2004 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from, In 2005, she was awarded "Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research" by the. Episode 5 of Break the FACTS! During her studies, Dunham attended a lecture on anthropology, where she was introduced to the concept of dance as a cultural symbol. As one of her biographers, Joyce Aschenbrenner, wrote: "anthropology became a life-way"[2] for Dunham. Katherine Dunham predated, pioneered, and demonstrated new ways of doing and envisioning Anthropology six decades ahead of the discipline. Dunham's dance career first began in Chicago when she joined the Little Theater Company of Harper Avenue. At the age of 82, Dunham went on a hunger strike in . First Name Katherine #37. Time reported that, "she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest the U.S.'s forced repatriation of Haitian refugees. Even in retirement Dunham continued to choreograph: one of her major works was directing the premiere full, posthumous production Scott Joplin's opera Treemonisha in 1972, a joint production of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Morehouse College chorus in Atlanta, conducted by Robert Shaw. 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 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). However, it has now became a common practice within the discipline. Katherine Dunham : Dance and the African Diaspora - Google Books Never completing her required coursework for her graduate degree, she departed for Broadway and Hollywood. During this time, she developed a warm friendship with the psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm, whom she had known in Europe. [52], On May 21, 2006, Dunham died in her sleep from natural causes in New York City. Fighting, Alive, Have Faith. London: Zed Books, 1999. Best Known For: Mae C. Jemison is the . Fun Facts. About Modern Dance - Jacqueline Burgess Jacqueline Burgess Upon returning to Chicago, the company performed at the Goodman Theater and at the Abraham Lincoln Center. 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. Katherine Dunham is credited Her dance troupe in venues around. Vintage Dancers You Should Know: Katherine Dunham Both remained close friends of Dunham for many years, until her death. Name: Mae C. Jemison. About Miss Dunham - Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities She choreographed for Broadway stage productions and operaincluding Aida (1963) for the New York Metropolitan Opera. New York: Rizzoli, 1989. Named Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt, she was their only child. Charm Dance from "L'Ag'Ya". 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'. Despite these successes, the company frequently ran into periods of financial difficulties, as Dunham was required to support all of the 30 to 40 dancers and musicians. used throughout the world choros, rite de passage, los Idies, and. At an early age, Dunham became interested in dance. Dunham created Rara Tonga and Woman with a Cigar at this time, which became well known. Katherine Dunham Biography for Kids - lottie.com 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. Katherine Dunham's Mark on Jazz Dance | Jazz Dance: A History of the She directed the Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York, and was artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. movement and expression. She wanted to know not only how people danced but why they dance. The show created a minor controversy in the press. The Katherine Dunham Company toured throughout North America in the mid-1940s, performing as well in the racially segregated South. [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. Dunham early became interested in dance. 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]. The Dunham company's international tours ended in Vienna in 1960. The Black Tradition in American Modern Dance. Birth Country: United States. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Katherine Dunham facts for kids. 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. Interesting facts. Katherine Dunham Birthday & Fun Facts | Kidadl Katherine Dunham. She was likely named after Catherine of Aragon. Katherine Dunham died on May 21 2006. 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.". He had been a promising philosophy professor at Howard University and a protg of Alfred North Whitehead. Intrigued by this theory, Dunham began to study African roots of dance and, in 1935, she traveled to the Caribbean for field research. theatrical designers john pratt. [3] She created many all-black dance groups. Katherine Dunham (born June 22, 1909) [1] was an American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist [1]. Othella Dallas, 93, still teaches Katherine Dunham technique, which she learned from Dunham herself. informed by new methods of america's most highly regarded. Dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham was born on June 22, 1910, in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a small suburb of . for teaching dance that is still la'ag'ya , Shange , Veraruzana, nanigo. Photo provided by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Morris Library Special Collections Research Center. Our site is COPPA and kidSAFE-certified, so you can rest assured it's a safe place for kids . The program she created runs to this day at the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities, revolutionizing lives with dance and culture. [37] One historian noted that "during the course of the tour, Dunham and the troupe had recurrent problems with racial discrimination, leading her to a posture of militancy which was to characterize her subsequent career."[38]. Each procession builds on the last and focuses on conditioning the body to prepare for specific exercises that come later. [13] University of Chicago's anthropology department was fairly new and the students were still encouraged to learn aspects of sociology, distinguishing it from other anthropology departments in the US that focused almost exclusively on non-Western peoples. But what set her work even further apart from Martha Graham and Jos Limn was her fusion of that foundation with Afro-Caribbean styles. Additionally, she was named one of the most influential African American anthropologists. Alvin Ailey later produced a tribute for her in 198788 at Carnegie Hall with his American Dance Theater, entitled The Magic of Katherine Dunham. 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. The school was managed in Dunham's absence by Syvilla Fort, one of her dancers, and thrived for about 10 years. The Katherine Dunham Museum is located at 1005 Pennsylvania Avenue, East St. Louis, Illinois. [5] She had an older brother, Albert Jr., with whom she had a close relationship. She returned to the United States in 1936 informed by new methods of movement and expression, which she incorporated into techniques that transformed the world of dance. Two years later she formed an all-Black company, which began touring extensively by 1943. 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. ", Scholar of the arts Harold Cruse wrote in 1964: "Her early and lifelong search for meaning and artistic values for black people, as well as for all peoples, has motivated, created opportunities for, and launched careers for generations of young black artists Afro-American dance was usually in the avant-garde of modern dance Dunham's entire career spans the period of the emergence of Afro-American dance as a serious art. The State Department regularly subsidized other less well-known groups, but it consistently refused to support her company (even when it was entertaining U.S. Army troops), although at the same time it did not hesitate to take credit for them as "unofficial artistic and cultural representatives". In 1976, Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Occupation(s): Katherine Dunham - Facts, Bio, Favorites, Info, Family - Sticky Facts With choreography characterized by exotic sexuality, both became signature works in the Dunham repertory. Katherine Johnson | Biography, Education, Accomplishments, & Facts Katherine Dunham Facts for Kids In 1964, Dunham settled in East St. Louis, and took up the post of artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University in nearby Edwardsville. In her biography, Joyce Aschenbrenner (2002), credits Ms Dunham as the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance", and describes her work as: "fundamentally . The recipient of numerous awards, Dunham received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1983 and the National Medal of Arts in 1989. Katherine Dunham. She arranged a fundraising cabaret for a Methodist Church, where she did her first public performance when she was 15 years old. Tune in & learn about the inception of. Katherine Dunham - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The program included courses in dance, drama, performing arts, applied skills, humanities, cultural studies, and Caribbean research. (She later wrote Journey to Accompong, a book describing her experiences there.) Dancer, anthropologist, social worker, activist, author. Kraut, Anthea. [17] She was one of the first African-American women to attend this college and to earn these degrees. Katherine Dunham on Break the FACTS! - YouTube 10 Facts About Katherine Johnson - Mental Floss In 19341936, Dunham performed as a guest artist with the ballet company of the Chicago Opera. Search input Search submit button. She also continued refining and teaching the Dunham Technique to transmit that knowledge to succeeding generations of dance students. Katherine Dunham and her Haitian legacy - Dance Australia It was a venue for Dunham to teach young black dancers about their African heritage. [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. There she met John Pratt, an artist and designer and they got married in 1941 until his death in 1986. 8 Katherine Dunham facts - Katherine dunham 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. Katherine Dunham | YourDictionary Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 May 21, 2006)[1] was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora - Goodreads Book. The living Dunham tradition has persisted.