Katherine Dunham -- Matriarch of Black Dance
While studying anthropology at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, Katherine Dunham still found time to continue her studies in modern dance and to open her first dance school.
Josephine Baker : image and icon
edited by Olivia Lahs-Gonzales ; essays by Benneta Jules-Rosette, Tyler Stoval, Olivia Lahs-Gonzales.
St. Louis, MO : Reedy Press : Sheldon Art Galleries, c2006.
Created to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the celebrated African American entertainer, Josephine Baker: Image and Icon uses lavish illustrations and informative essays to tell the story of a legendary performer whose appeal transcended race, country, and culture. This rich, once-in-a-lifetime volume gathers photographs, posters, drawings, prints, and sculpture to tell the story of Baker's life and contributions to twentieth-century culture. An essay by Bennetta Jules-Rosette offers a biographical overview of the performer's career, Olivia Lahs-Gonzales places Baker in context as Modern Woman, and Tyler Stovall describes Black Montmartre and the Paris Jazz Age. Book jacket.
The black dancing body : a geography from coon to cool
Brenda Dixon Gottschild.
New York, N.Y. : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Watching contemporary American dance is a unique and electrifying experience. Swept along with the dancers, one wonders how the unorthodox movement and unexpected tempo came about. To provide at least one answer to this question, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts a "geography" that maps a unique, yet startlingly ubiquitous, region of influence in the history of American dance: the black dancing body. The author invites the reader on a journey of sorts and says, "The black dancing body (a fiction based on reality, a fact based upon illusion) has infiltrated and informed the shapes and changes of the American dancing body." Using interviews with black, white, and brown dance practitioners as well as performance analysis and personal recollections of her own life in the world of dance, Brenda Dixon Gottschild charts the endeavors, ordeals, and triumphs of "black" dance and dancers by exposing perceptions, images, and assumptions, past and present. In her journey to discover the contours and importance of the black dancing body, the author spoke to some of the greatest dancers and choreographers of our time - Fernando Bujones, Trisha Brown, Garth Fagan, Bill T. Jones, Ralph Lemon, Meredith Monk, Meriaacute;n Soto, Doug Elkins, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and a cadre of their esteemed colleagues. The "embattled territories" of the black dancing body are probed chapter by chapter: feet, buttocks, hair, skin color. The whole of the black dancing body is "re-membered" in the final chapters on soul and spirit. The Black Dancing Body is a key to the ineffable rhythms and movement of dance in America.
Josephine : the hungry heart
Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase.
New York : Cooper Square Press ; 2001.
- Originally published: 1st ed. New York : Random House, c1993.
- Includes bibliographical references (p. [505]-512) and index.
In 1936 Ms. Dunham was able to combine her training as an anthropologist with her belief that dance was an integral part of a people's social structure. That year Ms. Dunham traveled to the Caribbean to study African rituals and native dance forms. These field trips allowed her to investigate and incorporate indigenous dances and body movements into her work.
Upon returning to the United States, Katherine Dunham introduced African and Caribbean rhythms to modern dance and ballet. This became known as the Dunham Technique. As she taught, Ms. Dunham conveyed detailed information about the dance movements, how they were developed, as well as the philosophy behind her technique.
Katherine Dunham opened the Dunham School of Dance in New York to "train dancers in the knowledge and use of primitive rhythms." All the while she appeared in many films, performed, choreographed, and directed theater dance shows that toured all around the world.
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Dunham School of Dance alumni:
Eartha Kitt
Marlon Brando
Jennifer Jones
Arthur Mitchell
Rudi Gernreich
Peter Gennaro |
Following an acclaimed dance career, Ms. Dunham moved to East St. Louis, Illinois. Struck by the obvious signs of anger and hostility among the city's youth and believing dance to be "concerned with the fundamentals of society," she established the Performing Arts Training Center. Designed to offer city youth constructive alternatives to violence the Center included three active programs: the dance company, the children's auxiliary company and the educational center. Besides dance, other offerings included photography, theater and martial arts programs.
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"I used to want the words "She tried" on my tombstone. Now I want "She did it."”
(Ms. Dunham died May 6, 2006 at age 96) |
The Katherine Dunham Museum consists of a collection of furniture, paintings, musical instruments, costumes, decorations, photographs, sketches, a broad range of ethnic art objects, and a cross-section of personal belongings documenting the life of this extraordinary woman.
Both the museum and the Katherine Dunham Children's Workshop continue to expose new generations to the work of this anthropologist, dancer, choreographer and humanitarian, the Matriarch of Black Dance.
Article by: St. Louis Public Library staff.
