Katherine Dunham

Katherine Mary Dunham was the mother of Black concert dance — a choreographer, dancer, anthropologist, and activist who created an entirely new dance technique rooted in the movement traditions of the African diaspora. The Dunham Technique, which fuses African, Caribbean, and modern dance forms, is still taught in studios worldwide and has influenced virtually every Black dancer and choreographer who followed her.

Born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, in 1909, Dunham earned her degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago, conducting groundbreaking fieldwork in Haiti and the Caribbean that documented dance as a living expression of culture and spirituality. She was among the first scholars to treat African diaspora dance as worthy of serious academic study.

Dunham's dance company performed around the world from the 1930s through the 1960s, and everywhere she went, she refused to perform before segregated audiences — canceling shows in the American South and filing formal protests with theaters. At 82, she went on a 47-day hunger strike to protest U.S. treatment of Haitian refugees. She continued teaching and advocating into her nineties, a living bridge between African tradition and American innovation.