KATHERINE
DUNHAM
One internationally acclaimed figure making her home
in the Metro-St. Louis area has the distinction of being
honored with her own museum. At the Katherine Dunham
Museum in East St. Louis, one learns that John Martin,
a critic for the
New York Times, once wrote "there is not one Broadway
show or Hollywood movie that includes dance that does
not owe something to Katherine Dunham". Miss Dunham
has been recognized for years as a pioneer in the field
of dance for her fusion of dance, choreography, and
anthropology. At New York's Carnegie Hall on the night
of January 15, 1979, Katherine Dunham was presented
with that year's Albert Schweitzer Music Award "for
a life's work dedicated to music and devoted to humanity."
Katherine Dunham is a dancer, choreographer, and scholar
who revolutionized American dance by going to the anthropological
roots of black dance and ritual.
As a child, Katie, as she was called, was quite a success
in dance recitals at school in Joliet, Illinois, a predominantly
white community where her father ran a dry cleaning
establishment. Her birth mother died when Katherine
and her brother Albert were young, and her father subsequently
remarried. Her interest in dance became apparent when
she organized a cabaret for a church social. With the
encouragement of her brother Albert, she was accepted
at the University of Chicago where she majored in anthropology.
To make ends meet, she worked in the library and gave
dance lessons; but still she continued dancing, studying
with Mark Turbyfill of the Chicago Opera as well as
Russian dancer Ludmilla Speranzeva. During this period,
Dunham founded a company, which soon developed into
the famous Katherine Dunham Dance Company.
Katherine Dunham did not just "happen" into her field.
Instead, she recognized the common ground shared by
anthropology and dance. After her first public appearance
with her group at the Chicago Beaux Arts Theater in
A Negro Rhapsody, and with the Chicago Opera Company,
in 1935 she applied for and received a fellowship from
the Julius Rosenwald Foundation to study anthropology
and dancing in the Caribbean. During her time in the
West Indies, she discovered what was to become the core
of her artistic expression: African and Caribbean dance
with its movements based on animals, plants and the
elements of the universe.
By the late 1930's, the transformation from scholarship
to dancing was complete. She brought her distinctive
styles of dance to the United States. She first appeared
on the New York stage at the Windsor Theater in Tropics
And Le Jazz Hot. She appeared at the Martin Beck
Theater in October 1940 as Georgia Brown in Cabin
In The Sky, for which she also arranged the choreography.
She then toured the United States and Canada in Tropical
Revue. She co-directed and danced in Carib Song
at the Adelphi Theater in New York in 1945, and
was producer, director, and star of Bal Negre
at the Belasco Theater in New York in 1946. A gifted
choreographer, Dunham during this time also worked on
the movies Emperor Jones and Cabin In The
Sky. Her other film credits include Carnival
Of Rhythm, Star Spangled Rhythm, Stormy Weather, Cashba,
Green Mansions, and Pardon My Sarong.
In the l940's, Dunham opened a school in the Times Square
area which thrived for a decade and attracted the attention
of such students as James Dean, Butterfly McQueen, Doris
Duke, Julie Belafonte and Peter Gennaro. An article
in "Dance Magazine" notes that Dunham's company was
"an incubator for many well-known performers, including
Eartha Kitt, Talley Beatty, Janet Collins and Vanoye
Aikens. In the 1940's and 1950's, its heaviest touring
years, the company visited an astounding fifty-seven
countries.
Miss Dunham's first appearance in London was at the
Prince of Wales Theatre in June 1948 with her own company
in Caribbean Rhapsody, which was already a success
in the United States, and with which she was to tour
Europe. It was the first time Europe had seen black
dance as an art form and also the first time that the
special elements of American modern dance appeared outside
America.
Miss Dunham continued to dance, choreograph and direct
on Broadway on into the 1960's. Ever the pioneer, she
was the first black choreographer to work with the Metropolitan
Opera when she was hired for its 1963 production of
Aida. Except for a brief appearance in l965,
Miss Dunham has not performed regularly since 1962,
concentrating instead on choreography. One of her major
projects was choreographing and directing Scott Joplin's
opera Treemonisha in 1972, presented by a troupe
from her Performing Arts Training Center. However, as
with Grace Bumbry, Katherine Dunham also sought to integrate
her art into the very fabric of society, a calling to
a life at times away from the spotlight. In 1965 she
served for two years as an advisor to the cultural ministry
of Senegal. Returning to the United States in 1967,
she left the conventional dance world to live and work
in East St. Louis, teaching at an inner-city branch
of the Southern Illinois University. There, she ran
a school attached to the University involved in teaching
martial arts, drumming and dance to neighborhood and
youth groups.
In 1975, the Dunham Foundation purchased property in
East St. Louis to serve as a repository for Miss Dunham's
collections of art objects and artifacts as well as
items related to her travels and career. The Katherine
Dunham Museum opened in 1977. With a grant from the
Columbia Broadcasting System, in 1982 the carriage house
behind the museum was converted to serve as the Katherine
Dunham Children's Workshop, where children learn languages,
folk songs, and cultural awareness. Visitors from all
over the world have visited the Museum and Workshop.
In August 2000, the Dunham Institute at City Center
in New York was held for the first time, bringing dance
education to the public schools as furthering established
members of the arts community.
The Dunham tradition continues as she shares her talents
and insights with future generations. In fact, the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theatre celebrated the life and
talents of Katherine Dunham in l987. In l994, two major
exhibitions in her honor were opened at the Caribbean
Cultural Center in New York. And just this spring, Miss
Dunham received the Duke Ellington Award. Clearly she
was, and is, a woman ahead of her time.
Katherine Dunham considers her technique "a way of life",
and it is one that can also be found in print. Miss
Dunham's first book, Journey To Accompong, was
published in 1946, followed by Dance of Haiti, Island
Possessed, and A Touch Of Innocence. She is currently
at work on an autobiography entitled Minefield.
Soon, her life story will also be on film. A biographical
motion picture is in the works, starring Debbie Allen.
The August 2000 issue of "Dance Magazine" hailed Katherine
Dunham on its cover as a "one-woman revolution". ARTS
FOR LIFE applauds Katherine Dunham-the anthropologist
and revolutionary.
Biography-October
8, 2000
