[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 77 (Thursday, June 15, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1163]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         HONORING THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF KATHERINE DUNHAM

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JERRY F. COSTELLO

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 15, 2006

  Mr. COSTELLO. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to take this opportunity to 
pay tribute to the life and extraordinary achievements of Katherine 
Dunham, who passed away on May 21, 2006.
  Katherine Dunham was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, on June 22, 1909. 
Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, was a descendant of slaves from 
Madagascar and West Africa. Her French Canadian mother, Fanny June 
Taylor, died when Miss Dunham was young. Her father then married 
Annette Poindexter, a schoolteacher from Iowa, and moved his family to 
Joliet, Ill., where he ran a dry-cleaning business.
  Katherine Dunham became interested in dance at an early age. While a 
student at the University of Chicago, she formed a dance group that 
performed in concert at the Chicago World's Fair in 1934 and with the 
Chicago Civic Opera in 1935-36.
  With a bachelor's degree in anthropology, she soon undertook field 
studies in the Caribbean and in Brazil. By the time she received her 
M.A. from the University of Chicago, she had acquired a vast knowledge 
of the dances and rituals of the black peoples of tropical America. 
(She later took a Ph.D. in anthropology.)
  In 1938, she joined the Federal Theatre Project in Chicago and 
composed a ballet, L'Ag'Ya, based on Caribbean dance. In 1940, she 
formed an all-black company, which began touring extensively by 1943. 
Tropics (choreographed 1937) and Le Jazz Hot (1938) were among the 
earliest of many works based on her research.
  Katherine Dunham is noted for her innovative interpretations of 
primitive, ritualistic, and ethnic dances and her tracing the roots of 
black culture. Many of her students, trained in her studios in Chicago 
and New York City, have become prominent in the field of modem dance. 
She also choreographed for Broadway stage productions and opera--
including Aida (1963) for the New York Metropolitan Opera. She also 
choreographed and starred in dance sequences in such films as Carnival 
of Rhythm (1942), Stormy Weather (1943), and Casbah (1947).
  Dunham also conducted special projects for Chicago black high school 
students. She served as the artistic and technical director (1966-67) 
to the president of Senegal; and artist-in-residence, and later 
professor, at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and director 
of Southern Illinois's Performing Arts Training Centre and Dynamic 
Museum in East St. Louis, Ill.
  Dunham's writings, sometimes published under the pseudonym Kaye Dunn, 
include Katherine Dunham's Journey to Accompong (1946), an account of 
her anthropological studies in Jamaica; A Touch of Innocence (1959), an 
autobiography; and Island Possessed (1969), as well as several articles 
for popular and scholarly journals.
  Except for a brief appearance in 1965, Dunham has not performed 
regularly since 1962 and has concentrated on her choreography. One of 
her major works was the choreographing and directing of Scott Joplin's 
opera Treemonisha in 1972. She dissolved her company in 1965 to become 
advisor to the cultural ministry of Senegal and returned to the United 
States in 1967.
  She left the conventional dance world of New York that year to live 
and work in East St. Louis at an inner-city branch of the Southern 
Illinois University, running a school attached to the University and 
working with neighborhood and youth groups.
  The Dunham tradition has persisted. She was considered a woman far 
ahead of her time. She considered her technique ``a way of life.'' The 
classes at her Manhattan school--attended by many artists, including 
Marlon Brando and Eartha Kitt, during the 1940s and the 1950s, were 
noted for their liberating influence.
  Her mastery of body movement was considered ``phenomenal.'' She was 
hailed for her smooth and fluent choreography and dominated a stage 
with what has been described as ``an unmitigating radiant force 
providing beauty with a feminine touch full of variety and nuance,'' 
otherwise known as the Dunham Technique, which is still practiced 
today.
  Katherine Dunham's intellectual, artistic, and humanitarian 
contributions have earned her many coveted awards over the years, 
including the Presidential Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, 
French Legion of Honor, Southern Cross of Brazil, Grand Cross of Haiti, 
NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, Lincoln Academy Laureate, and the 
Urban Leagues' Lifetime Achievement Award. She was also one of 75 women 
whose lives were celebrated in the book, I Have A Dream. Katherine is 
survived by a daughter, Marie-Christine Dunham-Pratt, who lives in 
Rome.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the life of 
Katherine Dunham on her service, her lifetime of experiences and her 
contribution to the world of dance which serves as an invaluable 
resource to not only the people of East St. Louis but to the world.

                          ____________________