Katherine Dunham is revered as one of the great pillars of American dance. ", Katherine Dunham in costume for "Tropical Revue" (1945), at New York's Century Theatre, Katherine Dunham in the 1948 Universal International Pictures Co., Inc. film, "Casbah. It will subsequently be performed as an independent work. The movements of the hips are very different, as the hips are typically kept in line with the upper body in European styles of dance while in African dance and the dances of the African diaspora, the hips are more articulated, moving separately from the upper part of the body. Dunham receives an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. 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. Known as the "Matriarch of Black Dance," Katherine Dunham, in the 1930s, founded the first major black modern dance company in the United States. Her presentation includes pictures, music, and dance. Music Division, Library of Congress. Dunham receives the Dance Pioneer Award given by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. ", In October, Dunham addresses the all-white audience at Memorial Auditorium in Louisville, Kentucky, in a curtain speech in which she speaks out against segregation. The show closes after eight performances. After a brief stay, she travels to Martinique and Trinidad. Katherine Dunham knew of Duncan’s bold attitudes towards personal freedom of expression and natural movement. The fieldwork on the martial art l’ag’ya shown above is one of many examples of this. As the surviving films show, she was interested in the differences between Western European social dance and classical ballet and African American dance. That work began with ethnographic work in the Caribbean in 1936. Barre placement and work: The length, lines, and turns are characteristic of Dunham style. will change some of these things. The finale to the first act is Shango , a staged interpretation of a Vodun ritual that would become a permanent part of her company's repertory. 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 is named one of "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures External" by the Dance Heritage Coalition. Caribbean Influence Her work in the Caribbean led to her creation of the Katherine DunhamTechnique, a style of dancethat involved a loose torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs. Dunham choreographs and stages two scenes: the Ramadan Festival and the Casbah Nightclub. The contribution of Katherine Dunham and Alvin Ailey to modern dance 1 . Katherine Dunham reassembles some of her dancers for a New York performance on the occasion of American Ballet Theater's twenty-fifth anniversary gala. In January, Dunham premieres Choros (nos. He called the Dunham technique, "The closest thing to a unified Afro-American dance existing." Dunham choreographs Son (Sound) and, in October 1938, introduces it into the suite Primitive Rhythms. . Postures and movements in many martial arts become regularized as practitioners learn how to fight without doing serious damage to their opponents. On a Caribbean island plantation, a slave sings a love song while his companions work. Here is one of the three ethnographic videos of l’ag’ya in the online collection (silent). Nineteenth-Century Brazilian quadrille dances it at the Cave Supper Club in Vancouver, British Columbia photograph of Dunham have. 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