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K atherine Duhnum

K atherine Duhnum. Created By: Frucisierre Hoffman. Birth andParents.

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K atherine Duhnum

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  1. Katherine Duhnum Created By: Frucisierre Hoffman

  2. Birth andParents • Katherine Mary Duhnum was born June 22, 1909 in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. 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 Katherine was four years old. After her father’s remarried few years later, the family moved to a “white” neighborhood where their family ran a cleaning business.

  3. Later Interests • She early became interested in dance. 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 company in 1935–1936. After her father’s remarried few years later, the family moved to a “white” neighborhood where their family ran a cleaning business.

  4. Careers • Academic anthropologist • Dancer and choreographer • Educator and writer • Political activist and humanitarian

  5. Personal life • She married JordisMcCoo, a black postal worker, in 1931, but they didn’t have anything in common and they gradually spilt apart, finally divorcing in 1938. About that time she met and began to work with John Thomas Pratt, one of America's most famous costume and theatrical set designers. He was white, shared Dunham's interests in African-Caribbean cultures and was happy to help. They married on July 10, 1941, even though inter-racial marriages were questionable at the time. From the beginning of their friendship, around 1938,he designed every costume she ever wore. He continued as her dresser and manager of her career until his death in 1986. They had one adopted daughter, Marie-Christine Dunham Pratt.

  6. Awards • In 1971 she received the Heritage Award from the National Dance Association. • In 1979 at Carnegie Hall, she received the Albert Schweitzer Music Award. • In 1987 she was received the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, and was also inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame. • In 1983 she was a recipient of one of the highest artistic awards in the United States, the Kennedy Center Honors. • In 1986 the American Anthropological Association gave her a Distinguished Service Award.

  7. Awards • In 1989 she was awarded a National Medal of Arts], an honor shared by only two other University of Chicago alumni, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth. • She has her own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. • In 2000 she was named one of the first one hundred of "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures" by the Dance Heritage Coalition. • In 2002 MolefiKete Asante included her in his book entitled 100 Greatest African Americans. • In 2005, she was awarded "Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research" by the Congress on Research in Dance.

  8. Death • May 21, 2006, New York, at the age 96.

  9. Pictures

  10. Credits • http://www.biography.com/people/katherine-dunham-9281288?page=1 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Dunham

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