4.5: Dance Anthropology in Action

An early activist for social justice, dancer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham (1901 - 2006) began studying ballet at a young age, eventually embracing classical ballet as a foundation for her future technique. Her early training also included East Indian Bharata Natyam, Javanese, and Balinese dance traditions (Legg, 2010). In 1929 she attended the University of Chicago to major in Cultural Anthropology with a scholarly focus on the dances of her ancestry, dances from the African diaspora. Eventually Dunham earned bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees focusing on dance anthropology. In 1930, Dunham formed her own dance company Ballet Nègre, one of the first ballet companies for black dancers in America. Their first public performance was at the Chicago World’s Fair. Dunham received her first grant to study the dances of Jamaica, Martinique, Trinidad, and Haiti in 1935 where she spent 9 months as a dance anthropologist studying the local dance culture from which she began to develop the world’s first “African American” concert dance technique based on her field work in the Caribbean.

Dunham choreographed her first full-length ballet, L'Ag’Ya (1938) and at that time, her stated goal was “to develop a technique that will be as important to the white man as to the Negro... To attain a status in the dance world that will give to the Negro dance-student the courage really to study, and a reason to do so… And to take our dance out of the burlesque – to make of it a more dignified art” (Manning, 2010, p. 504, emphasis in the original). Dunham’s incorporation of isolated torso to hip undulations used polyrhythmic tempos counterpoint to graceful fluidity in the port de bras (style arm movements), as well as “classical lines” and turn-out.

Her unique style has been characterized variously as modern, jazz, or fusion with dramatic narrative features. In 1940, Dunham co-choreographed Cabin in the Sky on Broadway with George Balanchine, though she was never given choreography credit in the playbill program (O’Conner, 2006). Her company of dancers and musicians embarked on their first United States tour in the production then in the film Carnival of Rhythm (1941). Following the United States entry into World War II, Dunham made an appearance the musical film Star Spangled Rhythm (1942), then Pardon My Sarong (1942). Then in 1943, her company worked on the black Hollywood musical Stormy Weather (1943) (Conyers, 2005). Following Broadway and Hollywood, Dunham’s troupe then commenced a tour through North Africa, North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia.

Figure 4.6. Katherine Dunham was an American dancer, anthropologist, choreographer, educator, author, activist, and universalist. (File:Katherine Dunham.jpg - Wikimedia Commons Source: Library of Congress. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.05791; Phyllis Twachtman, World Telegram staff photographer)

Making its premiere at the Adelphi Theater in New York, one of Dunham’s major works was Shango (1945) with a finale to the first act of Carib Song, which conjures the distinctive atmosphere of the West Indies. Shango was a staged interpretation of a Voodoo ritual that became a permanent part of the company’s repertory. Dunham technique classes employ multiple drummers -- the dancers engage polyrhythmic isolated body movements, so that one body part will move to the beat of one tempo while another body part will move to a completely different tempo simultaneously. Dunham’s choreographic style and movements are grounded, including leaps and prances. Her merging of European-style ballet to polyrhythmic movements derived from African and Caribbean cultures, Dunham adapted and innovated a unique movement for public performance, such as Shango.

In 1947, she published Dances of Haiti, a work considered to be the first serious study of ethnic dance, and through the 1950s, her company toured and filmed numerous televised productions around the world. Both the Haitian and French governments designated Dunham as an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in their respective countries, and she received the President's Award of the National Council for Culture and Art from President Reagan. Dunham received a Kennedy Center Honors award in 1983, and in 1992 at the age of 82, stirred international attention by going on a 47 day fast in protest to the United States’ deportation of Haitian refugees fleeing a military coup.

University systems also host Dunham technique certified instructors who follow and preserve the Dunham tradition (Sacramento Bee, 2012). A former principal dancer with the Dunham company, Dr. Glory Van Scott, has described the impact Dunham’s work had on jazz and modern dance techniques (Bloch, 2009). A feature cover story on Dunham in Dance Magazine was entitled “One-Woman Revolution” where her style was further described as ‘fusion’ technique (Perron, 2000). Dunham presented indigenous forms on a concert stage based on her ethnographic fieldwork fused to ballet and was the first American choreographer to successfully sustain a black dance company, innovating and performing in concert theatres, film, tour, and nightclubs. Dunham started a dance school, created a new dance technique still practiced today, and unfailingly fought for social justice.

And it has been said that Dunham was a “universalist” (Aschenbrenner, 2002) and given a title by some as the Black Matriarch of Modern Dance. However, as a universalist, she expressed public discontent at being given such a title, challenging the presumption that the significance of her work reached only as far as Black dance? During a 2003 New York tribute, she addressed the audience as follows: “There is one thing I would like to say; I am so tired of being considered a leader of Black dance. I am just a person who happens to be what in this country is called 'Black.' I will insist on being called, one, a person, and two, a human being” (Dunham, 2003 cited in Missouri Historical Society, n.d.).