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Katherine Dunham

Born: 1909 in Chicago, Illinois
Died: 2006 in New York, New York

Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Dunham was born in Chicago. As a child, she lived in Glen Ellyn, the south side of Chicago and Joliet, Illinois. In 1965, Dunham became an artist-in-residence at Southern University in Carbondale. In 1967, the Equal Opportunity Commission, as part of the Southern Illinois University's Experiment in Higher Education, funded Dunham's proposal for creating a Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East Saint Louis. A cultural education program at the Alton campus of Southern Illinois University was established with two former members of the Dunham company and classes at Rock Junior High School in East Saint Louis were also established. She returned from Southern Illinois University in 1982 and received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville in 1983.

Biography: Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, and company director as well as an author, educator, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century and has been called the 'matriarch and queen mother of black dance.'


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Non-Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Katherine Dunham on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=katherine+dunham


Selected Titles

A touch of innocence :
ISBN: 0226171124 OCLC: 29548130

University of Chicago Press, Chicago : 1994.

Island possessed
ISBN: 9780307819840 OCLC: 795707331

Doubleday & Company, Inc., New York : 2012.

Just as surely as Haiti is possessed by the gods and spirits of vaudun (voodoo), the island possessed Katherine Dunham when she first went there in 1936 to study dance and ritual. In this book, Dunham reveals how her anthropological research, her work in dance, and her fascination for the people and cults of Haiti worked their spell, catapulting her into experiences that she was often lucky to survive. Here Dunham tells how the island came to be possessed by the demons of voodoo and other cults imported from various parts of Africa, as well as by the deep class divisions, particularly between blacks and mulattos, and the political hatred still very much in evidence today. Full of the flare and suspense of immersion in a strange and enchanting culture, Island Possessed is also a pioneering work in the anthropology of dance and a fascinating document on Haitian politics and voodoo.

Island possessed /
ISBN: 0226171132 OCLC: 29564326

University of Chicago Press, Chicago : 1994.

"Katherine Dunham began her love affair with Haiti during her first visit in 1936 as a graduate researcher in dance and anthropology. Island Possessed reconnects her with this love, bringing to life personal sketches of political figures, market women, peasants, children, even gods. Dunham tells how the island came to be possessed by the demons of voodoo and other cults imported from various parts of Africa, as well as by the deep class divisions and the political hatred still very much in evidence today."--Back cover.

  Kasamance :
ISBN: 0893881287 OCLC: 2709540

Odarkai Books, New York : ©1974.

Katherine Dunham's Journey to Accompong.
ISBN: 0837151872 OCLC: 279176

Negro Universities Press Westport, Conn., [1971]

 

 

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