KATHERINE DUNHAM: THE FIRST LADY OF DANCE

In this edition of The Black Fist: Best & Brightest Everyday Black History Series.....

It is with much pleasure that I bring to you the amazing life and career of Ms. Katherine Dunham. And it is with great sadness that I also bring to you the death of Ms. Katherine Dunham. Ms. Dunham recently died at her home in New York City at the age of 96. The cause of death is not know at this time. Ms. Dunham is survived by her daughter, Marie Christine Pratt, who lives in Rome.

Katherine Dunham was truly the "First Lady of Dance" regardless of race. She was just that goood!!!

In this edition of our series, we'll take a look in essence at her extradinary life & career along with a look at just how active she stayed after her retirement from the theatre.

Few people truly know the extent of Ms. Dunham's activism. She got out there and fought for her people at a time when the white folks really wasn't trying to hear it. Sort of reminds you of where you are living right now, huh? Well, nevertheless let's get started and as I've stated this edition brings me great pleasure and great sadness all rolled up into one. I've always admired this beautifully talented Black woman and always will.

We like to call this edition.....

KATHERINE DUNHAM: THE FIRST LADY OF DANCE (1909-2006)

Katherine Dunham born June 22, 1909, in Joilet, Illinois, she became one of the first Black Students to attend the University of Chicago, where she earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in anthropology. She combined her interest in anthropology with the study of indigenous dances of native cultures. A prolific author, she published Dances of Haiti, hailed as one of the first serious studies of ethnic dance. She wrote her autobiography A Touch of Innocence in 1959. Her latest book is Kaiso: Writings By and About Katherine Dunham, edited by VeVe Clark and Sara Johnson.

She offered words of inspiration for the next generation of trailblazers in an EBONY February 2006 feature story. She told EBONY "Be sure that every breath, every thought, every movement, every deed is being helpful to someone or something. Be sure that you are honest and true. Find ways to be stronger and wiser everyday."

Dunham was married to theatrical designer John Pratt for 49 years before his death in 1986. Pratt designed most of the costumes for her productions.

Katherine Dunham was a legendary trailblazing dancer-choreographer, known as the "Matriarch of Black Dance." Dunham was perhaps best known for bringing African and Caribbean influences to the European-dominated dance world. "We weren't pushing 'Black is beautiful,' we just showed it." she once said. She pioneered a groundbreaking form of dance that blended cultural anthropology with the artist genre of dance in the early 1930s.

She opened her first dance school in Chicago in 1931. The Dunham Dancers, her professional troupe formed in the early 1940s, was a first for Black Americans and paved the way for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre and Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem. Dunham choreographed Aida for the Metropolitian Opera and Broadway musicals, including Cabin in the Sky. She and her dancers appeared in several films, including Star Spangled Rhythm, Carnival of Rhythm and Stormy Weather in 1943 that starred Lena Horne. Eartha Kitt and Shelley Winters were among her dance students. Dunham's New York studio attracted other illustrious students like Marlon Brando and James Dean, who came to learn the "Dunham Technique," which combined African movement and rhythm with elements of classical ballet. She once described it as "more than just dance or bodily executions. It is about movement, forms, love, hate, death, life, all human emotions."

Her dance company toured internationally from the 1940s to the '60s, visiting 57 nations on six continents. Her success was won in the face of widespread discrimination, a struggle Dunham championed by refusing to perform at segregated theatres.

She received 10 honorary doctorates, the Presidential Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honor, membership in the prestigious French Legion of Honor, as well as major honors from Brazil and Haiti. During the height of her career in the '40s and '50s, her famous, sexy legs were insured for $1 million, EBONY reported. After 1967, she lived most of each year in prodiminantly Black East St. Louis, IL, where she struggled to bring the arts to the poor city of burned-out buildings and high crime. Government cuts and a lack of private funding forced her to scale back her arts program in the 1980s.

Plagued by arthritis in the latter part of her life, Dunham made headlines in 1982 when she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest U.S. policy that repatriated Haitian refugees. "It's embarrassing to be an American," she said at the time.

As of this writing, Funeral Arrangement were still pending.

Well folks there you have it once again. The life of another extraordinary Black person who overcame the odds to make it happen and all on their on terms while doing battle with those who tried to stop them in their tracks. Oh yes, Mother Sis. Katherine Dunham was a beautiful Black woman (as the pictures above most certainly show you even well into her 90s she glowed) who danced in front of millions but never forgot her people or where she came from and she will be sorely missed. Another Black legend gone from us but never ever to be forgotten.

It is up to you and I to teach our children about people such as Katherine Dunham. She lived a long productive life and had an amazing career and our children need to need that if a Black woman in the 1930s, '40s '50s and 60's could do it....So can they!

And her acts of activism will always be at the forefront of re-telling her story. She lost plenty of money while refusing to dance in segregated theatres but she did not care. If black people could not sit down with other races (including the ones doing the discriminating, the white folks) and watch her performances, she simply refused to perform P-E-R-I-O-D! Now who out there can't respect that!

Our Deepest Condolences go out to the family of Mother Katherine Dunham and may her spirit continue to shine and live on forever as well as the teachings of her unique dancing techniques. Katherine Dunham, an inspiration to all of us who love the arts, myself included!

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