The Legacy of Black Dance and Katherine Dunham — In Practice: The Official University of Chicago Arts Blog

Red Clay Dance, photographed by Matt Karas

As we gear up for a performance by the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project at the Logan Center this Saturday, May 21, 2022, University of Chicago student Hope Houston (’23) reflects on her participation in last year’s concert, and the work of the late, great dancer and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, whose legacy and impact reach far past Chicago.

By Hope Houston

It was hot. It was a hot summer day in the beautiful and lovely city of Chicago where I unloaded my car with banners, cameras, and cinder blocks to set up for the Navy Pier Performance, Resurgence, by the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project last August. I set up my archival booth, “Just Chi of a Legacy: A CBDLP Archival Booth,” where I, alongside my volunteers, collected oral histories of the many who attended this creative and empowering performance. One of the questions I posed read: “Do you think it’s important to document, archive, and remember the history of Black dance, specifically in Chicago? Why?” Each person answered this with rich answers, including Muntu Dance Theatre of Chicago Artistic Director Regina Perry-Carr. She answered with an old African Proverb that states: “Until the Lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project has been working on illuminating the history of the eight Black dance organizations that make up the project’s cohort, as well as Black dance in Chicago at large.

Chicago is a city founded by, lived by and for, and enriched by Black people. From the Great Migration onward, Chicago has been a city where Black people had congregated and created safe and artistically creative spaces to collaborate and build upon their art. Whether you look at the Black Belt and the “Stroll” to the South Shore Cultural Center, Black art and dance has shaped this city. Katherine Dunham (1909-2006), an anthropologist, dancer, and choreographer, was crucial to dance in Chicago, and the world at large. Dunham studied anthropology at the University of Chicago where she was one of the first African Americans to receive an Anthropology degree. Through her studies, she traveled to Haiti and other areas in the Caribbean to study various dance forms and understand the connection between movement and meaning. Dunham coined the philosophy “form and function” to understand the “religious and secular, in primitive and folk societies” in relation to the traditional dance practices they created. Traditional Black dance, such as the Haitian dance yonvalou, has a form and function that define one another. The function, meaning and context of the dance, can inform how the movement is shaped and sequenced together. Dunham used this to inform her own technique, which can often be seen as a mixing between some westernized traditional ballet/modern dance with traditional Black dances across the diaspora that she studied during her travels. This philosophy, as well as the many others she built out during her studies, has continued to be a central part of dance in Chicago, and across the nation.

Dunham’s legacy continues to live on as we continue to practice her technique and share it amongst others. A central part to studying Dunham is the use of the archives. Archival work is incredibly important to understand the roots of Black dance and to see the various forms it took place. Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project understands this as a crucial aspect in celebrating the power of Black dance in Chicago. Red Clay Dance Company, located on 63rd and Cottage Grove, actively continues her legacy through their Dunham technique classes that take place not too far from where Dunham began her studies. Students at the University of Chicago are able to learn about her legacy through the various classes offered through the Theatre and Performing Arts department, including “Katherine Dunham: Politics in Motion.” Not only are students able to learn and engage with the theories of Dunham and learn from artists who are practicing her technique, but students are also able to engage with Black dance and its history at large. Classes such as “Mapping Black Social Dance: Hip Hop and House in the Community and Onstage,” “Dance and the Archive,” and “Black Experimentation in Dance” all highlight and illuminate the richness that is Black dance in Chicago and globally. Due to the nature of Black dance, the students in these courses are able to build community with creatives all across the city of Chicago, and bond over a healing and spiritual practice.

Through Dunham, we can see that Black dance is communal, it is spiritual, it is philosophical, and it is powerful in the way it can bring together communities of Black people across geographical spaces and generations. Muntu Dance Theatre, Najwa Dance Corps, Joel Hall Dancers and Center, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Aydoele Drum and Dance, Chicago Multi-cultural Dance Center, Red Clay Dance and Forward Momentum Chicago actively bring together communities to learn, acknowledge, and celebrate Black dance and its history. As the Strategic Planner for the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project, Princess Mhoon, said at the recent Navy Pier Performance:

“We lost the opportunity to own our own bodies when we became slaves and so for me and my perspective, dance is really a protest, the idea of protest for black people - that we have reclaimed ourselves through dance… It is the physical language of the body.”

Dance holds memory, community, love, joy and so much more. Black people have shaped and been the foundation to what we know about dance today. So, the next Tik Tok dance you do or dance class you take, learn about its roots. Understand, appreciate, and continue to illuminate Black dance makers.

Hope Houston (’23) is a History and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Double Major in her third year at the University of Chicago.

See the members of the Chicago Black Dance Legacy Project—Muntu Dance Theatre, Najwa Dance Corps, Joel Hall Dancers and Center, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, Aydoele Drum and Dance, Chicago Multi-cultural Dance Center, Red Clay Dance and Forward Momentum Chicago—on stage at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts on May 21, 2022.

Stop by the first floor of the Logan Center to view the archive project, on view now until the show opens.