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Dunham (Katherine) Photograph (Collection on)
MS.P.047
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine
Libraries
Title: Photograph collection on Katherine Dunham
Identifier/Call Number: MS.P.047
Physical Description:
1.6 Linear Feet
(3 boxes and 4 oversized folders)
Date (inclusive): 1938-1959
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.
Language of Material:
English .
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. Date accessed.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information
about sources consulted in this collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder
descriptions, and box/folder locations.
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.
| 1909 June 22 | Katherine Mary Dunham born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. |
| 1928 | Entered University of Chicago. |
| 1933 | 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 | L'Ag'Ya |
| 1939 | Carnival of Rhythm |
| 1940 | Cabin in the Sky |
| 1940 | Formed the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. |
| 1940-1941 | 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 | Pardon My Sarong |
| 1942 | Star Spangled Rhythm |
| 1943 | Stormy Weather |
| 1945 | Opened Katherine Dunham School of Dance in New York. |
| 1947-1949 | Toured Mexico and Europe. |
| 1948 | Casbah |
| 1950 | Toured South America. |
| 1950 | Botta e Riposta |
| 1950 | Purchased Habitation Leclerc. |
| 1951-1953 | Toured Europe, North Africa. |
| 1951 | Adopted four-year-old Marie-Christine. |
| 1954 | Mambo |
| 1954 | Liebes Sender |
| 1955 | Música en la Noche |
| 1956-1957 | Toured South Pacific and Far East. |
| 1957 | A Touch of Innocence |
| 1958 | Green Mansions |
| 1959-1960 | Third European tour. |
| 1960 | Karaibishe Rhythmen |
| 1962 | Bamboche |
| 1963 | Aida |
| 1964 | The Bible |
| 1964-1965 | Artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. |
| 1964-1965 | 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. |
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.
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.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Choreographers.
Photographic prints -- 20th century.
Contact sheets -- 20th century.
Dance photography -- History -- Sources.
Modern dance -- Photographs.
Dance -- Photographs.
Dance -- Archives
Choreographers -- United States -- Photographs.
Dancers -- United States -- Photographs.
African American dance -- Photographs.
Dancers.
Postcards -- 20th century.
African Americans in the performing arts -- Photographs.
Letters -- 20th century.
Katherine Dunham Company -- Archives
Dunham, Katherine -- Archives
Katherine Dunham Company -- Photographs
Dunham, Katherine -- Photographs