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Dance Legend Katherine Dunham comes to Barnard College, March 29
 Legendary choreographer, dancer, anthropologist and activist Katherine Dunham will come to Barnard on March 29 as a part of the Dance Department's series On Dance: Conversations, Films and Lectures. Ms. Dunham will be interviewed by Assistant Professor Paul Scolieri, a dancer and award-winning dance scholar whose research interests include Latin American and Caribbean dance. The program will also include a video screening of Ms. Dunham in performance.
The event will take place on Monday, March 29, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. in the Julius S. Held Lecture Hall.
Katherine Dunham is one of the most significant dance artists of the 20 th century. Trained as a dancer and anthropologist in the 1930s, she performed fieldwork in the West Indies to uncover the African roots of Afro-Caribbean cultural expression. Inspired by the sacred and secular dances she studied, she temporarily put aside her studies to pursue a career as a dancer and choreographer. In 1940 she established an all-black dance company, with which she developed a repertory and technique that incorporated Afro-Caribbean dance into American modern dance and ballet. The Katherine Dunham Dance Company performed to critical acclaim on Broadway and throughout the US, Europe, Mexico, and South America. She established a school in New York City in 1945 where students included Eartha Kitt and Marlon Brando.
Ms. Dunham appeared in nine Hollywood movies and in several foreign films, among them Carnival of Rhythm (1939), Stormy Weather (1943), and Mambo (1954). In 1963 she choreographed a production of Aida , becoming the first African-American to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera. In addition to her achievements in film and performance, Ms. Dunham has also written extensively on her anthropological fieldwork. Her books include Journey to Accompong (1946), The Dances of Haiti and Island Possessed (1969), as well as her memoirs, A Touch of Innocence (1959). Ms. Dunham is also widely-recognized as a humanitarian and political activist who has consistently protested against racial and social oppression. In 1977 she opened the Katherine Dunham Center for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to provide the city's youth a safe and creative haven from the streets. The Katherine Dunham Dynamic Museum, East St. Louis' only cultural center, houses Ms. Dunham's art, memorabilia, and archives. For her diverse contributions, Ms. Dunham has received many distinguished awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Music Award (1979) and a Kennedy Center Honor's Award (1983). She is 94 years old.
Professor Scolieri earned his Ph.D. in performance studies from New York University and has taught in the Barnard College Department of Dance for the past four years. Since 2000, the Barnard College Department of Dance's On Dance: An ongoing series of Conversations, Films and Lectures has brought dance artists and scholars to the college campus.
The event is co-sponsored by Barnard College's Pan-African Studies Program and The Barnard Center for Research on Women. On Dance events are free and open to the public. For more information, please call (212) 854-2995.
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