Katherine Dunham at home in Martissant,Haiti(1962)

Born in Chicago, and raised in Joliet, Illinois, Katherine Dunham did not begin formal dance training until her late teens. In Chicago she studied with Ludmilla Speranzeva and Mark Turbyfill, and danced her first leading role in Ruth Page's ballet "La Guiablesse" in 1933. She attended the University of Chicago on scholarship (B.A., Social Anthropology, 1936), where she was inspired by the work of anthropologists Robert Redfield and Melville Herskovits, who stressed the importance of the survival of African culture and ritual in understanding African-American culture. While in college she taught youngsters' dance classes and gave recitals in a Chicago storefront, calling her student company, founded in 1931, "Ballet Negre." Awarded a Rosenwald Travel Fellowship in 1936 for her combined expertise in dance and anthropology, she departed after graduation for the West Indies (Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, Haiti, Martinique) to do field research in anthropology and dance. Combining her two interests, she linked the function and form of Caribbean dance and ritual to their African progenitors.

The West Indian experience changed forever the focus of Dunham's life. Eventually she would live in Haiti half of the time and became a mambo( a vodou priestess), and caused a profound shift in her career. This initial fieldwork provided the nucleus for future researches and began a lifelong involvement with the people and dance of Haiti. From this Dunham generated her master's thesis (Northwestern University, 1947) and more fieldwork. She lectured widely, published numerous articles, and wrote three books about her observations: JOURNEY TO ACCOMPONG (1946), THE DANCES OF HAITI (her master's thesis, published in 1947), and ISLAND POSSESSED (1969), underscoring how African religions and rituals adapted to the New World.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• vodou dance
• haitian traditional dance
• folklore
• l'habitation de Leclerc
• art
• voodoo
• anthropology
• african
• ogou
• kreyolyt:stretch=16:9
• yt:quality=high

[tabianamoto]

THIS IS A PHENOMENAL PIECE OF HISTORY!!

God bless you and thank you for posting it!

[y0dalay]

can some translate this interview? also, does anyone know what dance she is performing later in the video?

[sodlo]

@geordany11 Dude alot of louisiana creole are from Haiti not to say most of them!!!!

[geordany11]

@UniversalOneLove1 dude the ppl of louisiana creoles were mulatoes..

[UniversalOneLove1]

@timaliceetbouqui So voodoo is only a Black skinned ritual? then what do you say about the louisiana creoles who practice voodoo? in fact it was brought to them by white Haitians who escaped during the Haitian revolution.

[doonker]

Wow, her French is much better than Josephine's(Baker)! Both of them are my dance icons. They are so similar yet so different

[abrittany91]

Haiti is such a beautiful country