Katherine Dunham

Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham in 1956.
Born	Katherine Mary Dunham (1909-06-22)June 22, 1909 Chicago, Illinois, U.S
Died	May 21, 2006(2006-05-21) (aged 96) New York City, New York, U.S
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Occupation	dancer, choreographer, author, educator, activist
Spouse(s)	Jordis W. McCoo (m.1931-1938; divorced) John Pratt (m.1941-1986; his death)

Katherine Mary Dunham (also known as Kaye Dunn, June 22, 1909 – May 21, 2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance."

While a student at the University of Chicago, Dunham took leave and went to the Caribbean to study dance and ethnography. She later returned to graduate and submitted a master's thesis in anthropology. She did not complete the other requirements for the degree, however, and realized that her professional calling was performance.

At the height of her career in the 1940s and 1950s, Dunham was renowned throughout Europe and Latin America and was widely popular in the United States, where The Washington Post called her "dancer Katherine the Great". For almost 30 years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time, and over her long career she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology. She also developed the Dunham Technique.

Katherine Mary Dunham was born on June 22, 1909 in a Chicago hospital and taken as an infant to her parents' home in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, a village about 25 miles west of Chicago. Her father, Albert Millard Dunham, was a descendant of slaves from West Africa and Madagascar. Her mother, Fanny June Dunham (née Taylor), who was of mixed French-Canadian and Native American heritage, died when Dunham was three years old. She had an older brother, Albert Jr., with whom she had a close relationship. After her father's remarriage a few years later, the family moved to a predominantly white neighborhood in Joliet, Illinois, where her father ran a dry cleaning business.