Brief History

 

Katherine Mary Dunham, performer, choreographer, and anthropologist, was born on June 22, 1909 in a Chicago hospital. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham was a black man. Dunham’s mother, Fanny June Dunham, was of French-Canadian and American Indian heritage. Soon after Katherine Dunham’s birth, her mother, who was twenty years older than her husband Albert Millard Dunham sadly died. After Fanny Dunham died, Katherine and her older brother were sent to live with their aunt, Lulu, in Joliet, Illinois, located on the South Side of Chicago. Katherine did not have formal training in any type of dance until she was in high school. While in high school she joined the Terpsichorean Club and began to train in free-style modern dance. After high school, Katherine attended a two year college in Joliet, Illinois and continued to train in dance. She studies with Ludmilla Speranzeva who was one of the first ballet teachers to accept black students into her classes.

While studying under Speranzeva in 1929, Katherine decided to also attend the University of Chicago on a scholarship; she becomes interested with anthropology and decides to study it in depth. In 1931 while still attending college, Katherine taught young dancers and held dance recitals in Chicago. That same year she formed a small dance company called Ballet Negre, this was one of the first black ballet companies in America. In 1933, Dunham opened her first dance school The Negro Dance Group with the help of her friend and teacher Speranzeva. Speranzeva took control of the company after Katherine’s graduation while she traveled to the West Indies to do field studies of anthropology and study dance methods. When she returned to America from her studies in 1937, she brought back a new and personal dance technique, formally called the Katherine Dunham Technique. Her dance technique was a modern dance style with a mix of African and Caribbean styles of movement; it included a flexible torso and spine, isolation of the limbs, and a polyrhythmic strategy of movement. After bringing her technique to America she married her theatrical designer, a white Canadian man by the name of John Pratt. Katherine and John remained a couple until his death in 1986.

Katherine continued to have much success throughout the 1940’s up till her death. She choreographed pieces for numerous shows including movie productions such as Stormy Weather featuring famous tap dancer Bill Robinson. She also performed and choreographed pieces on Broadway such as Cabin In The Sky in 1941. Also that year, Dunham choreograped one of her most controversial pieces, Southland. The performances vividly depicted life in the South for blacks with the disturbing image of a lynching. Once Americans discovered that the piece was being performed in Brazil, the were outraged and embarrassed by the representation of true American life. She continued to teach her dance technique to talented students such as Talley Beatty. In 1977, she opened the Katherine Dunham Museum and Children’s Workshop to house her collected items from her travels and research. Katherine died at the age of 96 on 21 May, 2006. She remains one of the most influential modern choreographers with her contributions to dance and society.

 

 

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