Photograph collection on Katherine Dunham, 1938-1959

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Summary

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.

Extent:

1.6 Linear Feet (3 boxes and 4 oversized folders)

Language:

English .

Preferred citation:

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.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Biographical / historical:

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.

Chronology
Date	Event
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.

Acquisition information:

Acquired in 2001 and 2004.

Processing information:

Processed by Audrey Pearson, 2007.

Arrangement:

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

Rules or conventions:

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Indexed terms

Subjects:: Choreographers.
Dance photography -- History -- Sources.
Modern dance -- Photographs.
Dance -- Photographs.
Dance -- Archives
Choreographers -- United States -- Photographs.
Dancers -- United States -- Photographs.
African American dance -- Photographs.
Dancers.
African Americans in the performing arts -- Photographs.
Photographic prints -- 20th century.
Contact sheets -- 20th century.
Postcards -- 20th century.
Letters -- 20th century.
Names:: Katherine Dunham Company -- Archives
Katherine Dunham Company -- Photographs
Dunham, Katherine -- Archives
Dunham, Katherine -- Photographs

Access and use

Restrictions:: The collection is open for research.
Terms of access:: 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.