Dancer Katherine Dunham Dead At 96
Katherine Dunham, black dancer, a pioneering dancer and choreographer, author and civil rights activist who left Broadway to teach culture in one of America’s poorest cities, has died. She was 96. The East St. Louis, Ill., resident had been preparing to move home permanently at the end of the month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Monday. The cause of her Sunday night death was not revealed.
Dunham was perhaps best known for bringing African and Caribbean influences to the European-dominated dance world. In the late 1930s, she established the nation’s first self-supporting all-black modern dance group. “We weren’t pushing `Black is Beautiful,’ we just showed it,” she later wrote. Read more!