Katherine Dunham

b. 22 June 1909 (Chicago, IL, USA) d. 21 May 2006 (NY, NY) American anthropologist-dancer-choreographer-actor-singer-author In 1964 she took the post as artist-in-residence at Southern Illinois University. In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Dunham to be technical cultural adviser— a sort of cultural ambassador—to the government of Senegal in West Africa. In 1967, Dunham opened the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) in East St. Louis in an effort to use the arts to combat poverty and urban unrest. After the 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Dunham encouraged gang members in the ghetto to come to the Center to use drumming and dance to vent their frustrations. While trying to help the young people in the community, Dunham was arrested. This gained international headlines and the embarrassed local police officials quickly released her. She lectured every summer until her death at annual Masters' Seminars in St. Louis, which attracted dance students from around the world. She established the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to preserve Haitian and African instruments and artifacts from her personal collection. n 1976, Dunham was guest artist-in-residence and lecturer for Afro-American studies at the University of California, Berkeley. A photographic exhibit honoring her achievements, entitled Kaiso! Katherine Dunham, was mounted at the Women's Center on the campus. In 1978, an anthology of writings by and about her, also entitled Kaiso! Katherine Dunham, was published in a limited, numbered edition of 130 copies by the Institute for the Study of Social Change.