Download or read book A Touch of Innocence written by Katherine Dunham and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1994-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An internationally known dancer, choreographer, and gifted anthropologist, Katherine Dunham was born to a black American tailor and a well-to-do French Canadian woman twenty years his senior. This book is Dunham's story of the chaos and conflict that entered her childhood after her mother's early death. In stark prose, she tells of growing up in both black and white households and of the divisions of race and class in Chicago that become the harsh realities of her young life. A riveting narrative of one girl's struggle to transcend the painful confusions of a family and culture in turmoil, Dunham's story is full of the clarity, candor, and intelligence that lifted her above her troubled beginnings. "A Touch of Innocence is an absorbing family chronicle written with a gift for physical detail sometimes too real for comfort. In quietly graphic prose the growing girl, the slightly older brother, the ambitious father and the kind stepmother are pictured in such human terms that when their lives get tied into harder and harder knots beyond their undoing, one can only continue to read helplessly as doom closes in upon the household."—Langston Hughes, New York Herald Tribune "A Touch of Innocence is one of the most extraordinary life stories I have ever read . . . . The content of this book is so heartbreaking that only the strongest artistic skills can keep it from leaking out into sobbing self-pity, but Katherine Dunham's art contains it, understands it and refuses to be overwhelmed by its terrors."—Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times "The first eighteen years of the famous dancer and choreographer's life are brought vividly to the reader in this first volume of her autobiography. She writes of what it is like to be a special, gifted young woman growing up in a racially mixed family in the American Middle West. A beautiful, touching and sometimes discomforting book."—Publishers Weekly "As writing it is honest, searing, graphic and touching, giving us a rather heartbreaking early view of the young American Negro who was later to make a name for herself as a dancer and choreographer."—Arthur Todd, Saturday Review

Download or read book Katherine Dunham written by Barbara O'Connor and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Katherine Dunham, emphasizing her childhood, her love of anthropology and dance, and the creation of her unique dance style.

Download or read book Katherine Dunham written by Joanna Dee Das and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-23 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important dance artists of the twentieth century, dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) created works that thrilled audiences the world over. As an African American woman, she broke barriers of race and gender, most notably as the founder of an important dance company that toured the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Australia for several decades. Through both her company and her schools, she influenced generations of performers for years to come, from Alvin Ailey to Marlon Brando to Eartha Kitt. Dunham was also one of the first choreographers to conduct anthropological research about dance and translate her findings for the theatrical stage. Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora makes the argument that Dunham was more than a dancer-she was an intellectual and activist committed to using dance to fight for racial justice. Dunham saw dance as a tool of liberation, as a way for people of African descent to reclaim their history and forge a new future. She put her theories into motion not only through performance, but also through education, scholarship, travel, and choices about her own life. Author Joanna Dee Das examines how Dunham struggled to balance artistic dreams, personal desires, economic needs, and political commitments in the face of racism and sexism. The book analyzes Dunham's multiple spheres of engagement, assessing her dance performances as a form of black feminist protest while also presenting new material about her schools in New York and East St. Louis, her work in Haiti, and her network of interlocutors that included figures as diverse as ballet choreographer George Balanchine and Senegalese president Léopold Sédar Senghor. It traces Dunham's influence over the course of several decades from the New Negro Movement of the 1920s to the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and beyond. By drawing on a vast, never-utilized trove of archival materials along with oral histories, choreographic analysis, and embodied research, Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora offers new insight about how this remarkable woman built political solidarity through the arts.

Download or read book Island Possessed written by Katherine Dunham and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2012-05-16 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just as surely as Haiti is "possessed" by the gods and spirits of vaudun (voodoo), the island "possessed" Katherine Dunham when she first went there in 1936 to study dance and ritual. In this book, Dunham reveals how her anthropological research, her work in dance, and her fascination for the people and cults of Haiti worked their spell, catapulting her into experiences that she was often lucky to survive. Here Dunham tells how the island came to be possessed by the demons of voodoo and other cults imported from various parts of Africa, as well as by the deep class divisions, particularly between blacks and mulattos, and the political hatred still very much in evidence today. Full of the flare and suspense of immersion in a strange and enchanting culture, Island Possessed is also a pioneering work in the anthropology of dance and a fascinating document on Haitian politics and voodoo.

Download or read book Katherine Dunham a Biography written by Ruth Beckford and published by New York : M. Dekker. This book was released on 1979 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham written by Hannah Durkin and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2019-08-16 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Josephine Baker and Katherine Dunham were the two most acclaimed and commercially successful African American dancers of their era and among the first black women to enjoy international screen careers. Both also produced fascinating memoirs that provided vital insights into their artistic philosophies and choices. However, difficulties in accessing and categorizing their works on the screen and on the page have obscured their contributions to film and literature. Hannah Durkin investigates Baker and Dunham’s films and writings to shed new light on their legacies as transatlantic artists and civil rights figures. Their trailblazing dancing and choreography reflected a belief that they could use film to confront racist assumptions while also imagining—within significant confines—new aesthetic possibilities for black women. Their writings, meanwhile, revealed their creative process, engagement with criticism, and the ways each mediated cultural constructions of black women's identities. Durkin pays particular attention to the ways dancing bodies function as ever-changing signifiers and de-stabilizing transmitters of cultural identity. In addition, she offers an overdue appraisal of Baker and Dunham's places in cinematic and literary history.

Download or read book Dances of Haiti written by Katherine Dunham and published by [Los Angeles, CA] : Center for Afro-American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. This book was released on 1983 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Kaiso written by Katherine Dunham and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 724 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is a collection of writings by and about Katherine Dunham, the African American dancer, anthropologist and social activist. It includes articles, her essays on dance and anthropology and chapters from her volume of memoirs, 'Minefields'.

Download or read book Katherine Dunham written by Joyce Aschenbrenner and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: She believes that dancing involves the development of an entire person and that the rituals and traditions of dance are integral to the study of culture. Throughout her career she has been a living model of the socially responsible artist working to wet cultural appetites and combat social injustice. Building on Dunham's published memoirs. A Touch of Innocence and Island Possessed. Joyce Aschenbrenner's multifaceted portrait blends personal observations based on her own interactions with Dunham, archival documents, and interviews with Dunham's colleagues, students, and members of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. Integrating these sources, Aschenbrenner characterizes the social, familial, and cultural environment of Dunham's upbringing and the intellectual and artistic community she embraced at the University of Chicago that laid the groundwork for her development as a dancer, anthropologist, and humanitarian.

Download or read book The Dance Claimed Me written by Peggy Schwartz and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pearl Primus (1919-1994) blazed onto the dance scene in 1943 with stunning works that incorporated social and racial protest into their dance aesthetic. In "The Dance Claimed Me," Peggy and Murray Schwartz, friends and colleagues of Primus, offer an intimate perspective on her life and explore her influences on American culture, dance, and education. They trace Primus's path from her childhood in Port of Spain, Trinidad, through her rise as an influential international dancer, an early member of the New Dance Group (whose motto was "Dance is a weapon"), and a pioneer in dance anthropology. Primus traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, Israel, the Caribbean, and Africa, and she played an important role in presenting authentic African dance to American audiences. She engendered controversy in both her private and professional lives, marrying a white Jewish man during a time of segregation and challenging black intellectuals who opposed the "primitive" in her choreography. Her political protests and mixed-race tours in the South triggered an FBI investigation, even as she was celebrated by dance critics and by contemporaries like Langston Hughes. For "The Dance Claimed Me," the Schwartzes interviewed more than a hundred of Primus's family members, friends, and fellow artists, as well as other individuals to create a vivid portrayal of a life filled with passion, drama, determination, fearlessness, and brilliance.

Download or read book Katherine Dunham written by Elizabeth Chin and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores Katherine Dunham's contribution to anthropology and the ongoing relevance of her ideas and methodologies, rejecting the idea that art and academics need to be cleanly separated from each other.

Download or read book Roberto Clemente written by Montrew Dunham and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-09-05 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roberto Clemente Walker was a Puerto Rican professional baseball player. He played 18 seasons at right field for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was a National League, Most Valuable Player once, All-Star twelve times (15 games), batting champion four times, and Gold Glove winner twelve times. In 1972, Clemente got his 3,000th major league hit. Clemente was very involved in charity work in Puerto Rico and Latin American countries during the off seasons. He died in an airplane accident on December 31, 1972, while en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. Now readers can explore how his childhood influenced his life.

Download or read book The Negro in Illinois written by Brian Dolinar and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2013-07-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major document of African American participation in the struggles of the Depression, The Negro in Illinois was produced by a special division of the Illinois Writers' Project, one of President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration programs. The Federal Writers' Project helped to sustain "New Negro" artists during the 1930s and gave them a newfound social consciousness that is reflected in their writing. Headed by Harlem Renaissance poet Arna Bontemps and white proletarian writer Jack Conroy, The Negro in Illinois employed major black writers living in Chicago during the 1930s, including Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Katherine Dunham, Fenton Johnson, Frank Yerby, and Richard Durham. The authors chronicled the African American experience in Illinois from the beginnings of slavery to Lincoln's emancipation and the Great Migration, with individual chapters discussing various aspects of public and domestic life, recreation, politics, religion, literature, and performing arts. After the project was canceled in 1942, most of the writings went unpublished for more than half a century--until now. Working closely with archivist Michael Flug to select and organize the book, editor Brian Dolinar compiled The Negro in Illinois from papers at the Vivian G. Harsh Collection of Afro-American History and Literature at the Carter G. Woodson Library in Chicago. Dolinar provides an informative introduction and epilogue which explain the origins of the project and place it in the context of the Black Chicago Renaissance. Making available an invaluable perspective on African American life, this volume represents a publication of immense historical and literary importance.

Download or read book Dancing Women written by Sally Banes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dancing Women: Female Bodies Onstage is a spectacular and timely contribution to dance history, recasting canonical dance since the early nineteenth century in terms of a feminist perspective. Setting the creation of specific dances in socio-political and cultural contexts, Sally Banes shows that choreographers have created representations of women that are shaped by - and that in part shape - society's continuing debates about sexuality and female identity. Broad in its scope and compelling in its argument Dancing Women: * provides a series of re-readings of the canon, from Romantic and Russian Imperial ballet to contemporary ballet and modern dance * investigates the gaps between plot and performance that create sexual and gendered meanings * examines how women's agency is created in dance through aspects of choreographic structure and style * analyzes a range of women's images - including brides, mistresses, mothers, sisters, witches, wraiths, enchanted princesses, peasants, revolutionaries, cowgirls, scientists, and athletes - as well as the creation of various women's communities on the dance stage * suggests approaches to issues of gender in postmodern dance Using an interpretive strategy different from that of other feminist dance historians, who have stressed either victimization or celebration of women, Banes finds a much more complex range of cultural representations of gender identities.

Download or read book Katherine Dunham s Journey to Accompong written by Katherine Dunham and published by . This book was released on 2013-04 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book African American Concert Dance written by John O. Perpener and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides biographical and historical information on a group of African-American artists who worked during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s to legitimize dance of the African diaspora as a serious art form.

Download or read book African American Pioneers in Anthropology written by Ira E. Harrison and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pathbreaking collection of intellectual biographies is the first to probe the careers of thirteen early African-American anthropologists, detailing both their achievements and their struggle with the latent and sometimes blatant racism of the times. Invaluable to historians of anthropology, this collection will also be useful to readers interested in African-American studies and biography. The lives and work of: Caroline Bond Day, Zora Neale Hurston, Louis Eugene King, Laurence Foster, W. Montague Cobb, Katherine Dunham, Ellen Irene Diggs, Allison Davis, St. Clair Drake, Arthur Huff Fauset, William S. Willis Jr., Hubert Barnes Ross, Elliot Skinner