Katherine Dunham

The Magic of Katherine Dunham 

Performer, anthropologist, choreographer, director, producer, author, essayist, educator, and humanist Katherine Dunham was born in Chicago. She studied dance with Ludmila Speranzeva and Vera Mirova. She received her bachelor's degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Chicago, which later would prove invaluable in her construction of a technique and dance theater based on primitive rhythms. 

During her early career as a dancer and choreographer, Dunham founded the Ballet Nègre in Chicago in 1931 and the Negro Dance Group in 1937. She was director of the Writers Project and subsequently Dance Director for the WPA Federal Theatre Project in Chicago. In 1938, she collaborated with well-known costume and set designer John Pratt (whom she later married) on L'Ag'Ya, a dance based on the folklore of Martinique. 

Her range of accomplishments is far-reaching: in 1939, she opened at the Windsor Theatre in New York for one performance of Tropics and Le Jazz Hot and stayed for 13 weeks. Later, she created the dramatic role of Georgia Brown in the Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky. In Hollywood, Dunham made such films as Star Spangled Rhythm, Stormy Weather, and Pardon My Sarong. She produced the musicals Tropical Revue, Carib Song, and Bal Nègre in New York, and Deux Anges Sont Venus in Paris. For over 30 years, Dunham maintained the only permanently self-subsidized dance troupe in America. She also published books and articles and recorded music in Mexico, Paris, and New York. 

Early on, she understood her responsibility to future generations of dancers and established a school in New York in 1943. For many years, Dunham divided her time between the Habitation Leclerc in Haiti and East St. Louis, IL, where she established a Performing Arts Training Center while she was a professor at Southern Illinois University. Dunham was honored for her achievements with numerous awards and 14 honorary doctoral degrees. She died in 2006 at age 96.