Dance History Session 9 Katherine Dunham
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Katherine Dunham Timeline 1909 A studio photograph of Katherine Dunham in the 1920s . Katherine Mary Dunham is born on 22 June 1909 in a Chicago hospital. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, is black; her mother, Fanny June Dunham, is a woman of French-Canadian and American Indian heritage. Shortly after her birth, her parents take the infant Katherine to their home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a village about fifteen miles west of Chicago. She spends her early years there in the company of her brother, Albert Jr., who is six years older than she. They become devoted to each other. 1913 Fanny June Dunham, twenty years older than her husband, dies. Katherine and Albert Jr. are sent to live with their father's sister, Lulu, on the South Side of Chicago. 1915 Albert Sr. marries Annette Poindexter, and the children go to live with their father and stepmother in Joliet, Illinois. Their stepmother becomes a benevolent influence, but their father is a strict disciplinarian who lays down hard rules of behavior and dispenses physical punishment for infractions. 1921 Dunham's short story, "Come Back to Arizona," written when she was twelve years old, appears in volume 2 (August 1921) of The Brownies' Book, a periodical edited by W.E.B. Du Bois. 1922 In high school, Katherine Dunham joins the Terpsichorean Club and begins to learn a kind of free-style modern dance based on ideas of Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf von Laban. At fourteen, to help raise money for her church, she organizes a "cabaret party." She is the producer, director, and star of the entertainment. 1928 In Chicago, Dunham begins to study ballet with Ludmilla Speranzeva, who had come to America with a Franco-Russian vaudeville troupe known as the Chauve-Souris. Speranzeva, one of the first ballet teachers to accept black dancers as students, introduces Dunham to the Spanish dancers La Argentina, Quill Monroe, and Vicente Escudero. Dunham also studies ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page and, through Vera Mirova, is exposed to East Indian, Javanese, and Balinese dance forms. 1929 Having attended a junior college in Joliet, Illinois, Katherine Dunham follows her brother Albert to the University of Chicago. She attends a lecture by Robert Redfield, a professor of anthropology who specialized in American Indian and African cultures. From him she learns that much of black culture in modern America had begun in Africa. She decides to major in anthropology and to focus on dances of the African diaspora. In the course of her studies, she attends classes taught by Redfield, A. R. Radcliffe-Browne, Edward Sapir, Lloyd Warner, and others. 1930 Katherine Dunham forms a dance company, Ballet Nègre, one of the first Negro ballet companies in America. 1931 Ballet Nègre gives its debut performance at the annual Beaux Arts Ball in Chicago. One of the numbers on the program is Negro Rhapsody, which is well received. No engagements follow, and the group disbands. Dunham marries Jordis McCoo, a postal worker. Although he dances in some of her productions, he does not share her interests. They gradually drift apart. 1932 Dunham consults Speranzeva about her idea to open a school for young black dancers, where she could teach them about their African heritage. Speranzeva advises her to forgo ballet, to focus on modern dance, and to develop her own style. 1933 Dunham opens her first dance school, the Negro Dance Group, in Chicago. With Speranzeva's help, it survives a rocky start and Dunham's subsequent absences when she was engaged in anthropological fieldwork. 1934 In a Chicago Opera production, Dunham dances the leading role in Ruth Page's ballet La Guiablesse (The Devil Woman). Based on a Martinican legend, it has an all-black cast. Dunham continues to appear as a guest artist with the Chicago Opera, where she acts as assistant to its ballet director, Ruth Page. Dunham revives her company, Ballet Nègre, with students from her school, the Negro Dance Group. Works in the repertory choreographed by Dunham include Spanish Dance and Fantasie Nègre. Dunham and her company appear at the Chicago World's Fair. 1935 Dunham receives a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to study the dances of the West Indies. After a course of study with Melville Herskovitz, head of the anthropology department at Northwestern University, she embarks for the Caribbean with letters of introduction written by Herskovits to Haitian anthropologist Dr. Jean Price-Mars, Colonel Simon Rowe of the Maroon people of Jamaica, President Stenio Vincent of Haiti, and other government officials and scholars in Haiti. Dunham arrives in Whitehall, Jamaica, whence she travels to the mountain village of Accompong. After a brief stay, she travels to Martinique and Trinidad. She conducts anthropological fieldwork wherever she goes. 1936 Early in the year Dunham arrives in Haiti, the final stop of her field trip. She feels a strong sense of identification with the place and the people. She is fascinated with the danced religion called Vodun. In late spring Dunham returns to the United States, and in June she presents the results of her research to her sponsors at the Rosenwald Fund. Her presentation includes pictures, music, and dance. In August Dunham receives a Ph.B. degree (bachelor of philosophy degree) from the University of Chicago. Her major field of study is recorded as social anthropology. 1937 Dunham and her company make a one-time appearance at the Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) on Ninety-second Street in New York City, joining African and African- American modern dancers Edna Guy, Alison Burroughs, Clarence Yates, and Asadata Dafora for A Negro Dance Evening. On the first half of the program, Dunham presents a suite of West Indian dances. In the second half of the program, "Modern Trends," Dunham presents Tropic Death, which casts Talley Beatty as the fugitive from a lynch mob. As part of the suite called Primitive Rhythms, Dunham premieres Rara Tonga at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. It will subsequently be performed as an independent work. Dunham and her dancers premiere Tropics at the Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago. The suite of dances includes Woman with a Cigar. 1938 Dunham choreographs and produces her first full-length ballet, L'Ag'Ya, which debuts in January at the Federal Theater, Chicago. Based on a fable of love, jealousy, and revenge, culminating in a staged version of the ag'ya, the fighting dance of Martinique, Dunham's ballet became part of the repertory of Ballet Fedré, a component of the Federal Theater Project , at the Great Northern Theater. Tropics is performed at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Dunham is named director of the Negro Unit of the Chicago branch of the Federal Theater Project and stages dances in several Chicago productions, including Run Li'l Chil'lun and The Emperor Jones. Dunham choreographs A las Montanas, one of her first solos, and dances it at the Abraham Lincoln Center in Chicago. Dunham submits a thesis entitled "Dances of Haiti: Their Social Organization, Classification, Form, and Function" to the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Master of Arts degree. Katherine Dunham in a c.1950s photograph of "Barrelhouse." Dunham choreographs and performs in Barrelhouse, a duet. It is one of her earliest works of Americana. Dunham choreographs Son (Sound) and, in October 1938, introduces it into the suite Primitive Rhythms. On a Caribbean island plantation, a slave sings a love song while his companions work. A girl becomes possessed, dances herself into a frenzy, and falls exhausted. Katherine Dunham and Jordis McCoo divorce. 1939 Katherine Dunham and Dance Company perform for the Quadres Society of the University of Cincinnati. Dunham begins her film career with Carnival of Rhythm, a short film written by Stanley Martin, directed by Jean Negulesco, and produced by Warner Brothers is devoted entirely to her, her company, and her choreography. She, Archie Savage, and Talley Beatty are the stars. Released in 1941, it includes Ciudad Maravillosa and early versions of Los Indios, Batucada , and Adeus Terras. All are based on Brazilian themes. Katherine Dunham and Dance Company perform Tropics and Le Jazz "Hot" in the College Inn Panther Room at the Hotel Sherman in Chicago. Dunham choreographs Bahiana, which premieres at a concert at the University of Cincinnati. Set to music by Don Alfonso, it concerns a woman of Bahia, Brazil, who dances and sings as she becomes entwined in the ropes of a group of dockside rope weavers at work. This number would become one of Dunham's most celebrated characterizations and would remain in her repertory throughout the 1940s. Published under the pseudonym Kaye Dunn and the heading "Sketchbook of a Young Dancer in La Martinique," two articles by Dunham appear in Esquire: "La Boule Blanche" (September 1939) and "L'Ag'ya of Martinique" (November 1939). Dunham begins work on Broadway. She is invited to contribute new material to the popular musical revue Pins and Needles, produced by the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union Players. For the second edition, entitled Pins and Needles 1940, she creates a dance to music by Harold Rome for "Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl, or It's Better with a Union Man." Archie Savage is among the dancers. 1940 For the American Negro Light Opera Association of Chicago, Dunham stages and choreographs Tropical Pinafore, a takeoff on the popular Gilbert and Sullivan work. The costumes are designed by John Pratt. As Pins and Needles 1940 continues its run at the Windsor Theater, New York, Dunham books her own company into the theater for a Sunday performance, which is so popular that the company repeats the Sunday performances for another ten weeks.