A performance of the Dunham Technique involves the merging of polyrhythmic dance styles in continual motion. Katherine Dunham was the first to combine the individualistic dance movements of Caribbean and African cultures with European-style ballet. She further fused anthropological research into the realm of dance artistry by uniquely including social and cultural rituals into public performances.

Through her anthropological studies Miss Dunham searched for the roots of black dance, and she found them in many different places. She weaved those roots into a new dance form and ultimately created the first black dance company. Dunham founded more than 60 schools to teach the Dunham Technique, and she spread the roots of American dance throughout the world. One of many labels given to Katherine Dunham is the Black Matriarch of Modern Dance. Although the title is meant to honor Miss Dunham, she has expressed public discontent with limiting the significance of her work to only black dance. In 2003, during a tribute in New York to Miss Dunham, she addressed the audience with the following statement:

“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.”

At that time she was 94 years old and still trying to teach that we must stop segmenting our society. Although with the Dunham Technique she beautifully incorporated Caribbean, African, and American cultural movements into one style on stage, she recognized that decades later we continue to separate the cultures when the music stops.

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Katherine Dunham performing in Acaraje, ca. 1940. Photograph by A. Castro. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.