NY Times, May 23, 2006 Katherine Dunham, Dancer, Is Dead at 96 By JACK ANDERSON
Katherine Dunham, the dancer, choreographer, teacher and anthropologist whose pioneering work introduced much of the black heritage in dance to the stage, died Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96. Her death was confirmed by Dr. Glory Van Scott, a friend and former Dunham dancer. Miss Dunham also had homes in East St. Louis, Ill., where she had run inner-city cultural programs for decades, and in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. By creating popular and glamorous revues based on African and Caribbean folklore, Miss Dunham acquainted audiences, both on Broadway and around the world, with the historical roots of black dance. In the late 1930's she founded the nation's first self-supporting black modern-dance troupe, one that visited more than 50 countries on six continents. Her achievements came at a time of racial discrimination, which she fought against, refusing to return to segregated theaters in the South. "We weren't pushing 'Black Is Beautiful,' we just showed it," she once wrote. One of her works, "Southland," depicted a lynching. Miss Dunham also became attached to Haiti and its culture, first arriving there as a young anthropologist. She later became a priestess of the Vaudun religion. In 1992, at the age of 82 and suffering from arthritis, she staged a much-publicized 47-day hunger strike to protest repatriation of Haitian refugees. In East St. Louis, she found talented young people living in one of the nation's most destitute areas and turned them into dancers. Describing her work there, she said her aim was "to make the individual aware of himself and his environment, to create a desire to be alive." Miss Dunham was a recipient of some of the most prestigious awards in the arts, including the Presidential Medal of the Arts, the Albert Schweitzer Prize (presented at Carnegie Hall), Kennedy Center Honors and decorations from the French and Haitian governments. In her dance technique, Miss Dunham emphasized the isolation of individual parts of the body. Some of her concepts continue to be taught at modern-dance schools across America. Her work was an important influence on Alvin Ailey, among other contemporary choreographers. George Balanchine cast Miss Dunham in a major role in "Cabin in the Sky," a Broadway musical starring Ethel Waters, which he staged and choreographed in 1940. She then went to Hollywood and danced in and choreographed the movies "Carnival of Rhythm" (1941), "Star-Spangled Rhythm" (1942) and "Stormy Weather" (1943), among others. It was in the 40's that Miss Dunham developed the fast-paced shows for which she was celebrated. "Tropical Revue," successfully produced on Broadway in 1943, also toured the nation to much acclaim. Its sensuality also drew complaints, and it was cut, and finally closed, in Boston. Miss Dunham was born on June 22, 1909 in Glen Ellyn, Ill. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, was a descendant of slaves from Madagascar and West Africa. Her French Canadian mother, Fanny June Taylor, died when Miss Dunham was young. Her father then married Annette Poindexter, a schoolteacher from Iowa, and moved his family to predominantly white Joliet, Ill., where he ran a dry-cleaning business. Always interested in the theater, Miss Dunham shocked neighbors when, at 15, she announced she would stage a "cabaret party" to aid a Methodist Church. Later, she confessed that she had scarcely known what "cabaret" meant. Miss Dunham attended Joliet Junior College and the University of Chicago, where she received her bachelor's degree, going on to a doctorate in anthropology there. She also studied dance in Chicago with Ludmilla Speranzeva and Mark Turbyfill, a choreographer and poet, with whom she established the short-lived Ballet Nègre in 1930. Ruth Page, a prominent Chicago choreographer, cast her in "La Guiablesse," a ballet based on Martinique folklore that was performed at the Chicago Civic Opera House in 1933. The following year, Miss Speranzeva helped Miss Dunham establish the Chicago Negro School of Ballet and a company, the Negro Dance Group, which evolved into the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. She did her anthropological field work in the Caribbean as a graduate student in 1935, receiving a Rosenwald Fellowship to study traditional dances in Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad and Haiti, where she became close to Haitians and took up the Vaudun religion. Over the years Miss Dunham spent much time in Haiti and in 1961 established a medical clinic there. In the United States, she worked with the Federal Theater in Chicago, where she met John Pratt, an artist and designer to whom she was married from 1941 until his death in 1986. He also managed her career. Their daughter, Marie Christine Dunham Pratt, of Rome, who survives her. Miss Dunham took her Negro Dance Group to New York in 1937 but did not attract wide attention there until 1939, when she choreographed "Pins and Needles," a satirical revue produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Her popular appearance on Broadway as Georgia Brown in "Cabin in the Sky" at the Martin Beck Theater led to Hollywood and her celebrated revues of the early 40's. Later revues included "Carib Song" (1945), "Bal Nègre" (1946), "Caribbean Rhapsody" (1948) and "Bamboche" (1962). They consisted of brief, vivid numbers inspired by African, Caribbean or African-American dance forms. In 1945, she founded the Dunham School of Dance and Theater in New York. Until it closed a decade later, it offered courses in dance, acting, psychology, philosophy, music, design and foreign languages. After World War II, her dance company toured constantly, visiting more than 50 countries in 30 years. "Judging from reactions," she said at one point, "the dancing of my group is called anthropology in New Haven, sex in Boston and in Rome art!" She also continued to choreograph in New York. In 1963 she became the first African-American to choreograph at the Metropolitan Opera since 1934, startling audiences with her lusty dances for a production of Verdi's "Aida." Writing in The New York Times, the critic Allen Hughes said: "There is 'modern' in it, belly-dancing, the foot-stamping and hip-and-shoulder shaking of primitive African dancing and much more. All pure Dunham." Miss Dunham began an association with Southern Illinois University in 1964 when she choreographed Gounod's "Faust" at the Carbondale campus. In 1967, she moved to its Edwardsville campus and founded the Performing Arts Training Center in nearby East St. Louis. She did more than offer courses there. Her collection of African and Haitian art became the basis for the community's Katherine Dunham Dynamic Museum, which opened there in the late-1970's. She also counseled disadvantaged young people, and her colleagues noted that she could calm the angriest of them through the sheer power of her presence, making her ordinarily soft voice even softer yet always firm as the counseling session proceeded. Miss Dunham was also the author of many books, some published under the pseudonym Kaye Dunn. Her books including "Journey to Accompong" (1946), "A Touch of Innocence: Memoirs of Childhood" (1959), "Island Possessed" (1969) and "Dances of Haiti" (1984). Miss Dunham remained relatively active in her last years. On May 11, she appeared at the Morgan Library in Manhattan for a screening of "Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball," an ABC special, broadcast on Monday, celebrating Ms. Winfrey's personal heroes, Miss Dunham among them. She was resplendent in a kente-inflected robe set off with a large paisley scarf. Earlier in the month she had appeared at La Boule Blanche (the White Ball) at Riverside Church, an event organized by her friend Dr. Scott to celebrate the publication of an anthology of writings by and about Miss Dunham. The book, "Kaiso!," edited by VèVè A. Clark and Sara E. Johnson, was recently released by University of Wisconsin Press. The title is a Calypso expression meaning, "Bravo!" -- _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
