Katherine Dunham: Pioneering Choreographer

Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) was the first choreographer to develop a formal technique based on movements from authentic Caribbean rituals, such as an arched torso and undulating spine, hip thrusts and pops, and shoulders that twitch and shrug. “The techniques that I knew and saw and experienced were not saying the things that I wanted to say,” she explained. “To capture the meaning in the culture and life of the people, I felt that I had to take something directly from the people and develop that.”

Dunham technique, as her method came to be called, combined Caribbean and African dance elements with aspects of ballet. It stressed strong core muscles, a flexible torso, relaxed back, powerful knees, and the ability to move parts of the body in isolation. “My real effort,” she recalled, “was to free the body from restriction.”

Her first full-length show, L’Ag’Ya, was set in Martinique and inspired by a folktale about a man who uses a zombie charm to win the love of a woman and exact revenge on his rival. Culminating in the fighting dance of Martinique, L’Ag’Ya debuted in Chicago in 1938 and became one of Dunham’s most popular performance pieces.

This video has no sound, but Dunham’s dancing really speaks for itself!

Later shows drew on the folk and ethnic traditions of the Caribbean as well as Central and South America and Africa. Debuting in New York City in 1940, Tropics and Le Jazz Hot traced the rich legacy of African dance in the Americas and featured Dunham’s popular performance as “Woman with a Cigar.” She also appeared in the successful 1940 Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky, which she helped choreograph with George Balanchine. Bal Nègre, which opened in 1946, included another audience favorite, “Shango.”

Dunham and her dancers received accolades in the U.S. and around the world, but they also encountered racial prejudice. Not only did some hotels and restaurants refuse to serve them, but Dunham and her troupe had to work against the widespread belief that African Americans were incapable of mastering formal dance techniques.

Despite the obstacles, Dunham eventually realized her dream that African-American dance be taken seriously as an art. Audiences worldwide flocked to her shows, and Dunham technique influenced a generation of African-American dancers and choreographers, including Alvin Ailey. Dunham choreographed dance sequences for Stormy Weather (1943) and other films. She also opened a performing arts school in New York City. In 1963, she choreographed a new production of Verdi’s opera Aida for the Metropolitan Opera.

In addition to multiple honorary degrees and other awards, Dunham received the 1983 Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime achievement in the arts, as well as the 1989 National Medal of the Arts “for her pioneering explorations of Caribbean and African dance, which have enriched and transformed the art of dance in America.”

Later this year, Dunham will be one of four choreographers honored on the Innovative Choreographers stamp pane. The others are Isadora Duncan, José Limón, and Bob Fosse. I can’t wait.

Choreographer Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations”

One of the leading choreographers of his era, Alvin Ailey (1931-1989) helped to popularize dance in America with works that frequently incorporated elements of modern dance, ballet, and jazz infused with the blues, Negro spirituals, and aspects of the African-American experience.

Taken in 1988, a studio portrait appears on this 2004 stamp alongside a 2000 photograph showing members of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performing Revelations. Drawing on Ailey’s childhood experiences, Revelations is a groundbreaking work that celebrates the cultural heritage of African Americans, which Ailey described as “sometimes sorrowful, sometimes jubilant, but always hopeful.”

Native American Heritage Month: American Indian Dances

Nothing symbolizes the richness and vitality of American Indian culture as much as its dances. Dancers perform at powwows, at social functions, in special ceremonies, and on theater stages.

One of the most electric performances is given by the Fancy dancer, usually a young man. Augmenting his regalia’s stately black-and-white eager feathers with brilliantly colored chicken feathers and elements such as ribbon and foil, this dancer does countless twists, acrobatics, and splits.

The Butterfly Dance is regularly performed in southwestern Pueblo Indian villages, where the butterfly is a symbol of peace, fertility, femininity, and agricultural abundance. In some villages, the dance is performed only after a formal request from the women, though Butterfly dancers usually appear in male/female pairs.

One of the oldest powwow dances performed in the Plains area is the Traditional Dance, said to have evolved out of an Omaha Indian tradition. Dancers wear the feathers of a golden eagle, a sacred and respected bird who delivers messages from the people below to The One Above.

Only experts can perform the difficult Hoop Dance, which involves creating designs with the hoops that represent elements of nature such as birds, turtles, and the earth. While keeping time with the music, the dancers move the hoops into a succession of changing patterns. It is widely believed that the hoop symbolizes the world or the universe.

In the cosmology and myth of the Tlingit people of southeastern Alaska, the Raven is a playful “trickster” figure, full of intelligence and curiosity. Credited with human and superhuman qualities, the Raven can transform itself into a person or any of various other manifestations. There are many dances featuring the Raven, which is portrayed by a masked dancer who makes appropriate calling sounds while flapping his or her “wings.”