Rebel Among Rebels

So many of Dunham's dances were based off of real rituals, and real everyday everyday activities that the people of the Afro-Caribbean Islands participated in. Certain dances can refer to very specific places and in some cases rituals of that specific place. For example, L Ag’ Ya was based on a ritual done in Martinique, which is based off of a wrestling match.

Katherine Dunham also participated in the creations of other works, one in particular with George Balanchine, who staged her in Cabin in the Sky, which was a modern rendition of the legend of Faust.

Woman with a Cigar

As described in Katherine Dunham: A Dancing Life by Joyce Aschenbrenner, the program for the show Tropical Revue was the outcome of a routinization and therefore became a model for later Dunham shows for the Company. Dramatic ballets like “Rites de Passage” and “L’Ag’Ya” were presented in the “chauve souris” tradition, which is stated to have the “finale consisting of Americana dances like plantation dances, spirituals, and American popular or social dances…”

Dunham’s innovational technique is like no other. According to Aschenbrenner, “…it was Katherine Dunham who introduced a systematic technique incorporating African movement; she and her company launched a series of dance programs that changed the course of modern dance and provided opportunities for black dancers.”

LINKS:

http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/32933586/Katherine-Dunham-Technique

http://books.google.com/books?id=KyhaD14Za40C&dq=Woman+with+a+Cigar+dunham&source=gbs_navlinks_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab6KWufcCUw

"A creative person has to create. It doesn't really matter what you create. If such a dancer wanted to go out and build the cactus gardens where he could, in Mexico, let him do that, but something that is creative has to go on." ~Katherine Dunham