Dancing for her People

Every February my history curriculum focuses on Black people. What I love about this time is that I always learn about so many heroes and sheroes. Because I love to dance my mom suggested that I study Katherine Dunham.

Katherine Dunham was a dancer, choreographer, songwriter, writer, educator and activist. She was born on June 22, 1909 and died on May 21, 2006. She was African-American and French-Canadian (on her mother’s side). Ms. Dunham grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois and started a private dance studio for young Black children before she finished high-school. She went to Joliet Junior College and later moved to Chicago where she studied at the University of Chicago.

Ms. Dunham is important to the world because she was the first person to incorporate African styles of dance into her choreography and she also built institutions when there wasn’t much support for Black people at all. Those institutions are still today. But Ms. Dunham also supported her community in other way. In support of the people in Haiti who were escaping the deadly Duvalier government, she went on a 47 day hunger strike.

Katherine Dunham is important to me because she is an iconic dancer and she always loved her people. I would like to be that kind of dancer and human being.