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Dancer Shoes

In 1930, Katherine Dunham formed Ballet Negre, which was one of just a few ballet companies available to black students at the time. Shortly thereafter, struggling with a lack of financial support, the company disbanded. In 1933, she opened her first dance school in Chicago (the Negro Dance Group) for young black dancers. In 1934, she revived Ballet Negre with performers from her dance school. In 1939, she became the dance director of the New York Labor Stage, and six years later she opened the Dunham School of Dance in New York.

Katherine Dunham’s legs.Miss Dunham was an international personality. She used bodies in motion to create ties among peoples of the African diaspora. During a tour in the late 1940s, one critic called Dunham an “ambassador with hips.” Miss Dunham said about her dance company: “Without Europe, we couldn’t have survived” (Aschenbrenner, conversation with the author, 1978). The Dunham Company toured to enthusiastic reviews from the 1930s through the 1950s, including venues in Mexico, London, Paris, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia and throughout the United States.

A Life in Profile
Anthropologist
Dancer
Dunham Dance Technique
Film Career
Global Activist
Legacy
Collections and Conservation
 

Miss Dunham officially disbanded the dance company in 1960. After 1962, she seldom performed on stage, instead focusing her attention on teaching, her established dance schools, choreography, and community arts projects.

>> Click on each image to see a larger view. <<

Katherine Dunham in Afrique, 1962–1963. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection. Katherine Dunham in Afrique, 1962–1963.
Katherine Dunham in Acaraje costume in Sarah Bernhardt's dressing room, Paris, 1959. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection. Katherine Dunham in Acaraje costume in Sarah Bernhardt's dressing room, Paris, 1959.
Neon Lights, "The Dunham Company Brightens Up Downtown Mexico City." Photograph by Charles Wicke, Mexico City, 1955. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.
Neon Lights, "The Dunham Company Brightens Up Downtown Mexico City."
Katherine Dunham’s legs. Back of image reads, "Katherine Dunham legs, of which Jean Cocteau said, ‘If we writers could say with our pens what Katherine Dunham says with her legs, our writings would be forbidden.' (Miss Dunham's legs are insured by Lloyds of London for $25,000.00)." Inscribed in pencil, "for about $1,000,000 by Hurok!" Photograph by F. S. Schiffer, 1954. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.
Katherine Dunham’s legs.
Katherine Dunham with dancer Vanoye Aikens in Floyd's Guitar Blues. Photograph by Roger Wood, London, 1948. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.
Katherine Dunham with dancer Vanoye Aikens in Floyd's Guitar Blues.
Sketch of Katherine Dunham with a caged bird on her head, artist unknown, 1948. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.
Sketch of Katherine Dunham with a caged bird on her head, artist unknown, 1948.

In 1939, Katherine Dunham moved to New York, where she became the director of the New York Labor Stage. She made her debut choreographing Tropics and Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem, ca. 1939. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection.

 

Tropics ,1939.      Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem, ca. 1939

Katherine Dunham in solo "Spanish Dance." Photograph by Dorien Basabe, Chicago, 1937. Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collection. Katherine Dunham in solo "Spanish Dance."
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