15665: JHudicourt: priceless evening with Katherine Dunham (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

 Katherine Dunham was a guest lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of
Education.   The lady was impressive.   She said she will be 94 soon.   She
has the greatest mind.   She talked about everything from her birth to a
bi-racial couple (white mother and black father), to her first memories of
dancing ( I needed to move all the time, and i looked for patterns, I moved
with patterns), to what she thinks love and a healthy life are ( love is an
energy shared .... and one must find a reason to live and pursue it in a
positive way), to taking good care of kids (we need to stop instilling fear
in children and help them be happy with who they are), to current events
including the war in Iraq (she thinks it relfects the beginning of the end
for this empire) and the officialization of vodoo as a religion by Aristide
(she sort of chuckled about that one,"Imagine that, a religion they have been
practicing for hundreds of years, now it's official").
I was so happy that I wanted to cry.   The woman is a treasure.   She said
she is writing a book about her legacy.    Yes, this was quite an experience
for me.   There was a group of drummers there to receive her and to end the
evening.   At the end she danced in her wheelchair...   Priceless.   I can
only compare it to meeting Moriso-Lewa, Rosa Parks, and Andre Pierre.   Quite
an experience.