Katherine Dunham | |
|---|---|
 Dunham in 1956 | |
| Born | Katherine Mary Dunham June 22, 1909 Glen Ellyn, Illinois, U.S |
| Died | May 21, 2006 (aged 96) New York City, U.S |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Occupation(s) | Modern dancer, choreographer, author, educator, activist |
| Spouses | Jordis W. McCoo
(m. 1931; div. 1938)John Pratt
(m. 1941; died 1986) |
Katherine Mary Dunham (June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006)[1] was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance."[2]
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. Receiving a postgraduate academic fellowship, she went to the Caribbean to study the African diaspora, ethnography and local dance. She returned to graduate school and submitted a master's thesis to the anthropology faculty. She did not complete the other requirements for that degree, however, as she realized that her professional calling was performance and choreography.
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. The Washington Post called her "dancer Katherine the Great." For almost 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time. Over her long career, she choreographed more than ninety individual dances.[3] Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. She also developed the Dunham Technique, a method of movement to support her dance works.[4]
- ^ "Katherine Dunham | African American dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2016-04-25.
- ^ Joyce Aschenbenner, Katherine Dunham: Dancing a Life (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002).
- ^ VèVè A. Clark and Sara E. Johnson, editors, Kaiso!: Writings by and about Katherine Dunham (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). This anthology of writings contains an abbreviated chronology of Dunham's life and career as well as a selected bibliography, a filmography of her commercial works, and a glossary.
- ^ "Katherine Dunham Biography". kdcah.org. Archived from the original on 2019-08-25. Retrieved 2016-04-25.