Cathrine Dunham
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Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham | | Katherine Dunham in 1956 | Born | Katherine Mary Dunham
January 29, 1910
Chicago, Illinois, USA | Died | May 21, 2006 (aged 96)
New York City, USA | Influenced by | Robert Redfield, Melville J. Herskovits | Spouse(s) | Jodis W. McCoo
(m.1931-1938; divorced)
John Pratt
(m.1951-1986; his death) |
Katherine DunhamLegendary dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, Katherine Dunham was born on June 22,1909 in Chicago, to an African American father and a French Canadian mother. She sang in her local Methodist Church in Joliet; but for a financial crisis at her church, she might never have sung anything but gospel songs. At age eight, she amazed and scandalized the elders of her church by doing a performance of decidedly non-religious songs at a cabaret party, in order to raise money. She never thought about a career in dance. Instead, she consented to her family's wish that she become a teacher and followed her brother, Albert Dunham Jr. to the University of Chicago, where she became one of the first African American women to attend this University and earned bachelor, masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology.
At the same time she became a student of Ludmilla Speranzeva, formerly of the Moscow Theater, Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page. Following graduation, she founded the Negro Dance Group. They performed at the Chicago Beaux Arts Theater in ‘A Negro Rhapsody’, dancing with the Chicago Opera Company, and one of the performances was attended by Mrs. Alfred Rosenwald Stern, who was sufficiently impressed to arrange an invitation for Dunham to appear before the Rosenwald Foundation, which offered to finance any study contributing toward her dance career that she cared to name. Thus armed with foundation money, Dunham spent most of the next two years in the Caribbean studying all aspects of dance and the motivations behind dance. Although she traveled
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham | | Katherine Dunham in 1956 | Born | Katherine Mary Dunham
January 29, 1910
Chicago, Illinois, USA | Died | May 21, 2006 (aged 96)
New York City, USA | Influenced by | Robert Redfield, Melville J. Herskovits | Spouse(s) | Jodis W. McCoo
(m.1931-1938; divorced)
John Pratt
(m.1951-1986; his death) |
Katherine DunhamLegendary dancer, choreographer and anthropologist, Katherine Dunham was born on June 22,1909 in Chicago, to an African American father and a French Canadian mother. She sang in her local Methodist Church in Joliet; but for a financial crisis at her church, she might never have sung anything but gospel songs. At age eight, she amazed and scandalized the elders of her church by doing a performance of decidedly non-religious songs at a cabaret party, in order to raise money. She never thought about a career in dance. Instead, she consented to her family's wish that she become a teacher and followed her brother, Albert Dunham Jr. to the University of Chicago, where she became one of the first African American women to attend this University and earned bachelor, masters and doctoral degrees in anthropology.
At the same time she became a student of Ludmilla Speranzeva, formerly of the Moscow Theater, Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page. Following graduation, she founded the Negro Dance Group. They performed at the Chicago Beaux Arts Theater in ‘A Negro Rhapsody’, dancing with the Chicago Opera Company, and one of the performances was attended by Mrs. Alfred Rosenwald Stern, who was sufficiently impressed to arrange an invitation for Dunham to appear before the Rosenwald Foundation, which offered to finance any study contributing toward her dance career that she cared to name. Thus armed with foundation money, Dunham spent most of the next two years in the Caribbean studying all aspects of dance and the motivations behind dance. Although she traveled