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Guide to the Photograph Collection on Katherine Dunham
MS-P047
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Title: Photograph collection on Katherine Dunham
Date: 1938-1959
Collection Number: MS-P047
Extent:
1.6 linear feet
(3 boxes and 4 oversized folders)
Languages: The collection is in English, German, French, and Spanish.
Repository:
University of California, Irvine. Library. Special Collections and Archives.
Irvine, California 92623-9557
Abstract: This collection comprises approximately 875 photographs of Katherine Dunham, the renowned dancer, choreographer, teacher,
anthropologist, and humanitarian, and of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. The collection contains photographic prints,
proofs, contact sheets, and postcards depicting performances, rehearsals, portraits publicity efforts, and candid moments.
The collection also contains typewritten letters concerning payment for photographs and other logistical matters of the Company.
Important Information for Researchers
The collection is open for research.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to reproduce or to publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Photograph collection on Katherine Dunham. MS-P047. Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries,
Irvine, California.
Acquired in 2001 and 2004.
Processed by Audrey Pearson, 2007.
Katherine Dunham was a choreographer, dancer, teacher, writer, anthropologist, social activist, and one of the founders of
the anthropological dance movement. She was the creator of the Dunham Technique, which blends African and Caribbean-based
rhythm with classical movement and greatly influenced American modern dance.
Born in 1909, Dunham came from a multi-ethnic background. Her mother was of Native American, French Canadian, English, and
possibly African ancestry, and her father was of Madagascan and West African ancestry. This multi-ethnicity contributed to
Dunham's interest in the culture and dances of Africa and the West Indies. She was also inspired early in life by the Terpsichorean
Club at her high school, which taught modern dance techniques based on the ideas of Jaques-Dalcroze and Rudolf von Laban,
and by her ballet studies with Russian ballerina Ludmilla Speranzeva.
Dunham attended the University of Chicago to study anthropology. There she earned a Rosenwald Fellowship to travel to the
West Indies to undertake research on Caribbean dance cultures. This first-hand experience developed into her master's thesis,
entitled "The Dances of Haiti: Their Social Organization, Classification, Form, and Function." While in Chicago, Dunham continued
to pursue dance and formed one of the first African American ballet companies, Ballet Nègre, as well as a dance school, the
Negro Dance Group. She was also a member of the Works Progress Administration's Mid-West Federal Writers' Project.
In 1938 Dunham left the university to pursue dancing and choreography in New York. There she formed the Katherine Dunham
Dance Company, one of the first self-supporting African American dance companies. From the early 1940s until the mid-1960s,
the Company toured as a concert dance group, introducing African and Caribbean dance and culture to United States and international
audiences. Many of the works performed were dance representations of Caribbean, African, or American cultural events. Dunham's
most celebrated choreographed pieces included
L'Ag'Ya, a story of a tragic love triangle based on a Martinique fighting dance;
Barrelhouse, an Americana piece based on a Florida swamp shimmy; and
Shango, based on a vodoun ritual. During this time Dunham also choreographed and danced in a number of Hollywood movies, including
Stormy Weather (1943).
In 1946 Dunham returned to New York and founded the Katherine Dunham School of Arts and Research. The school's emphasis was
on interdisciplinary study and included the Dunham School of Dance and Theater, the Department of Cultural Studies, and the
Institute for Caribbean Research. Courses included general anthropology, introductory psychology, ballet, modern dance, history
of drama, and Caribbean folklore. Among students who attended the school were James Dean, Peter Gennaro, Marlon Brando, Chita
Rivera, Eartha Kitt, and José Ferrer.
Dunham continued to tour with her company from the 1940s until the mid-1960s. Later in life she took on the role of humanitarian
and scholar, living in Haiti for a time, serving as an adviser to the cultural ministry of Senegal, and working as artist-in-residence
at Southern Illinois University, where she later became professor and director of the Performing Arts Training Center. In
1983 Dunham was awarded a prestigious Kennedy Center Honor alongside Frank Sinatra and James Stewart for her lifetime contribution
to the arts and American culture. She also received the United States National Medal of the Arts in dance in 1989 "for her
pioneering explorations of Caribbean and African dance, which have enriched and transformed the art of dance in America."
Dunham was also known for taking political stands. In 1944 she informed her audience in Lexington, Kentucky that she would
never dance there again because it was a segregated theater. In 1951 her troupe performed
Southland, a controversial piece in which a black man hangs from a rope while a woman sings the anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit."
Remarkably, at the age of 82, Dunham staged a 47-day hunger strike in protest of the United States ordering the return of
starving Haitian refugees to Haiti. She ended the strike only after a visit from the ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
Dunham died in 2006 at the age of 96.
Biography/Organization History
| 1909 June 22 | Katherine Mary Dunham born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. |
| 1928 | Entered University of Chicago. |
| 1933 | Appeared with Chicago Opera in La Guiablesse. |
| 1935 | Awarded a Rosenwald Travel Fellowship and began fieldwork in West Indies. |
| 1936 | Earned Ph.B. in Social Anthropology from University of Chicago. |
| 1938 | Federal theater performance of L'Ag'Ya. |
| 1939 | Choreographed Carnival of Rhythm (Warner Bros.). |
| 1940 | Choreographed and performed Cabin in the Sky. |
| 1940 | Formed the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. |
| 1940-1941 | First U.S. tour with Cabin in the Sky. |
| 1941 | Married John Pratt. |
| 1941-1947 | Second tour in United States and Canada, choreographed and performed Tropical Revue, Carib Song. |
| 1942 | Choreographed Pardon My Sarong (Universal Pictures). |
| 1942 | Appeared in Star Spangled Rhythm (Paramount Pictures). |
| 1943 | Choreographed and appeared in Stormy Weather (Twentieth-Century Fox). |
| 1945 | Opened Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York. |
| 1947-1949 | Toured Mexico and Europe. |
| 1948 | Choreographed and appeared in Casbah (Universal Pictures). |
| 1950 | Toured South America. |
| 1950 | Appeared in Botta e Riposta (Ponti-De Laurentiis). |
| 1950 | Purchased Habitation Leclerc. |
| 1951-1953 | Toured Europe, North Africa. |
| 1951 | Adopted four-year-old Marie-Christine. |
| 1954 | Choreographed and appeared in Mambo (Paramount Pictures). |
| 1954 | Choreographed and appeared in Liebes Sender (Germany). |
| 1955 | Choreographed and appeared in Música en la Noche (Mexico). |
| 1956-1957 | Toured South Pacific and Far East. |
| 1957 | Wrote A Touch of Innocence. |
| 1958 | Choreographed Green Mansions (M.G.M.). |
| 1959-1960 | Third European tour. |
| 1960 | Choreographed and appeared in German television special Karaibishe Rhythmen. |
| 1962 | Bamboche opened after recruitment in Morocco. |
| 1963 | Choreographed Aida. |
| 1964 | Choreographed "Sodom and Gemorah" scene in The Bible (De Laurentiis / Twentieth-Century Fox / Seven Arts). |
| 1964-1965 | Artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. |
| 1964-1965 | Choreographed Faust. |
| 1965 | Dissolved company to become adviser to the cultural ministry of Senegal. |
| 1966 | Offered training, choreographed for Ballet National de Senegal. |
| 1966 | Represented United States at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar. |
| 1967 | Jailed in East St. Louis for disorderly conduct following a meeting with local gang members promoting her Performing Arts Training Center to inner-city youth. |
| 1979 | International opening of the Katherine Dunham Museum. |
| 1980 | CBS grant for Children's Workshop. |
| 1982 | Retired from Southern Illinois University. |
| 1983 | Received Kennedy Center Honors Award. |
| 1986 | Husband John Pratt died. |
| 1991-1992 | Fasted for Haitian refugees. |
| 2006 May 21 | Died of natural causes at age 96. |
Aschenbrenner, Joyce.
Katherine Dunham: Dancing a Life. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
Beckford, Ruth.
Katherine Dunham: A Biography. New York: M. Dekker, 1979.
Dunham, Katherine.
Dances of Haiti. Los Angeles: Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983.
Dunham, Katherine.
Island Possessed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969.
Dunham, Katherine.
Journey to Accompong. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1971.
Dunham, Katherine.
A Touch of Innocence. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959.
Harnan, Terry.
African Rhythm -- American Dance: A Biography of Katherine Dunham. New York: Knopf, 1974.
Collection Scope and Content Summary
This collection comprises approximately 875 photographs of Katherine Dunham and of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. The
collection contains photographic prints, proofs, contact sheets, and postcards depicting performances, rehearsals, portraits,
publicity efforts, and candid moments of Dunham's third European tour (1959-1960), tour of South America (1950), and some
American performances. Particularly well represented are stage performances of
L'Ag'Ya,
Bahiana,
Barrelhouse,
Rites de Passage,
Tropics, and
Veracruzana. Of Dunham's feature films, only
Mambo (1954) is represented within the collection. A few photographers are identified; if not stated, the photographer is unknown.
The collection also contains typewritten letters concerning payment for photographs and other logistical matters of the Katherine
Dunham Dance Company.
This collection is arranged in four series.
- Series 1. Publicity photographs, circa 1951-1959, undated. 0.6 linear feet
- Series 2. Performance photographs, 1938-1954, undated. 0.6 linear feet
- Series 3. Backstage and candid photographs, 1949-1954. 0.3 linear feet
- Series 4. Correspondence, 1952-1959. 0.1 linear feet
Photographs, writings, and video recordings of Katherine Dunham and her dance company are also held by New York Public Library
for the Performing Arts, the Library of Congress, the Missouri Historical Society, and the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts
and Humanities.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Dunham, Katherine -- Archives.
Dunham, Katherine -- Photographs.
Katherine Dunham Company -- Archives.
Katherine Dunham Company -- Photographs.
African Americans in the performing arts -- Photographs.
African American dance -- Photographs.
Dancers -- United States -- Photographs.
Choreographers -- United States -- Photographs.
Dance -- Archives.
Dance -- Photographs.
Modern dance -- Photographs.
Dance photography -- History -- Sources.
Genres and Formats of Materials
Photographic prints -- 20th century.
Contact sheets -- 20th century.
Postcards -- 20th century.
Letters -- 20th century.
Choreographers.
Dancers.