|
|
Article: Katherine Dunham, dance legend, dies at age 96.(NATIONAL REPORT)(Obituary)
- Article from:
- Jet
- Article date:
- June 5, 2006
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Johnson Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Legendary trailblazing dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham, known as the "Matriarch of Black Dance," recently died at her home in New York City. She was 96.
The cause of death was not known at JET press time.
Dunham was perhaps best known for bringing African and Caribbean influences to the European-dominated dance world.
"We weren't pushing 'Black is beautiful,' we just showed it," she once said.
She pioneered a ground breaking form of dance that blended cultural anthropology with the artistic genre of dance in the early 1930s.
She opened her first dance school in Chicago in 1931. The Dunham Dancers, her professional troupe ...