The Library of Congress joins the world in mourning the loss of an American icon, Katherine Dunham, who died on May 21 at the age of 96. She was a dancer, choreographer, dance anthropologist, pioneer for racial and social justice and a role model for millions of children around the globe.
As the repository of her artistic legacy, the Library is honored to share the Katherine Dunham Collection with the world through an online presentation accessible at www.loc.gov/performingarts/encyclopedia/collections/dunham.html.
- Phyllis Twachtman
In December 2000, the Library's Music Division was awarded a grant of $1 million from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to undertake the Katherine Dunham Legacy Project. The financial support made possible the purchase of significant portions of Dunham's archives, which were originally housed at the Dunham Centers in East St. Louis, Ill. With the subsequent acquisition of almost 1,700 items in a variety of moving-image formats, the Library became a major source of information on Dunham's legacy—a legacy that encompasses choreographic works, technique and teaching, performance and production, anthropological analysis of the dance and ritual of the African diaspora, global activism, leadership in human rights and advocacy in the local African American community. The collection became accessible on the Library's Web site in 2004.
Born in Chicago in 1909, Dunham is best known for incorporating African American, Caribbean, African and South American movement styles into her ballets. As a young dancer and student at the University of Chicago, she chose anthropology as her course of study. The union of dance and anthropology had a profound impact on her choreographic style throughout her career.
Having won a Julius Rosenwald Fund Fellowship to study the dance forms of the Caribbean, Dunham conducted extensive fieldwork throughout the West Indies during the 1930s. Her experience yielded significant contributions to the discipline of dance anthropology and inspired her to develop the first African American concert dance technique.
- New York World-Telegram and Sun Newspaper Photo Collection
Upon her return to the United States, Dunham went to New York to perform and choreograph this new type of African American dance. Her choreography was extremely well received in New York, which led to opportunities for her to dance on Broadway and in feature films.
Dunham was one of the first black artists to form a dance company. In the 1940s she opened the Katherine Dunham School of Cultural Arts Inc. in New York to teach her technique to young dancers. The school's interdisciplinary curriculum—which included courses in anthropology and sociology—was considered radical at the time and remains unique today. Dunham schools were subsequently established in Paris, Stockholm and Rome.
Dunham continued to tour through the early 1960s, during which time she also choreographed for film and television. In 1964 she became artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University, where she subsequently became professor and director of the university's Performing Arts Training Center.
In 1983 Dunham was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and in 2000, she was named one of the "First 100 America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" by the Dance Heritage Coalition, a national alliance of leading dance libraries and collections. She continued to teach the Dunham technique to young dancers at the Dunham Centers in East St. Louis, until poor health forced her to move to an assisted living facility in New York, where she resided at the time of her death.
