16744: (Craig) Article: Katherine Dunham's Timeless Legacy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>



Katherine Dunham's Timeless Legacy, Visible in Youth and Age
September 16, 2003
By ANNA KISSELGOFF

At 94 Katherine Dunham has seen her life and achievement as
a pioneering anthropologist, dancer and choreographer
chronicled and honored many times. Yet a brilliantly
presented weekend tribute at Peter Norton Symphony Space
offered a fresh reminder of her living legacy.

In a Friday night program that began a three-day series
devoted to Ms. Dunham and Haitian culture, the
Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat and two former
Dunham dancers, Glory Van Scott and Julie Robinson
Belafonte, spoke of Ms. Dunham's humanitarianism and social
activism. Carmen de Lavallade, collaborating with Wynton
Marsalis, danced a stunning solo, stopping the show. So did
the veteran Haitian dancer Jean-Léon Destiné. The actors
Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee were the hosts.

Ms. Dunham supplied some equally memorable moments. Mayor
Michael Bloomberg and Representative Charles B. Rangel sent
citations. After they were read, Ms. Dunham, seated
onstage, had a friendly riposte.

"There is one thing I would like to say to Mayor
Bloomberg," she said. "I am so tired of being considered a
leader of black dance. I am just a person who happens to be
what in this country is called black. I will insist on
being called, one, a person and, two, a human being."

Noting that she was married for 49 years to "a white
husband," John Pratt, who died in 1986 and designed the
dazzling costumes and sets in her dance company in the
1940's and 50's, Ms. Dunham continued, "If you're an
athlete, would you say, `I'm a great black basketball
player?'"

Warming to her main point she told the audience, an
interracial mix of both young and old: "Stop dividing
people. Don't think of me as a great black dancer. I was
never a great dancer. I just did. This is going to cause me
a lot of trouble in the so-called black world. But I don't
mind."

With the field studies she did since the 1930's in
Caribbean culture, especially in Haiti, Ms. Dunham
nonetheless became one of the first American choreographers
to focus on the black heritage in the United States and in
the Western Hemisphere. Anyone fortunate enough to have
seen her fabulous dance company through the early 1960's
would remember that her barroom blues numbers were as
striking as the pageantry of her theatricalized vodou
rituals.

In a wider context she is not just a pioneer of black dance
but of American modern dance. Above all she is a creative
artist, fully aware that she danced and choreographed for
the stage. On Friday a cluster of young dancers and
musicians, many of Caribbean descent, performed the kind of
dances and drumming that would not be seen today on stage
without Ms. Dunham's pathfinding research and stagings.

A model to be emulated was Mr. Destiné, a former Dunham
dancer. His own distinguished career has always shown how
art and ethnology come together. Now 78, he looked agile
and nuanced, mesmerizing in a bent-legged solo to the
familiar "Shango" sung by Fanfan.

Ms. de Lavallade is not a former Dunham dancer, but
categories fell away as she marched in, a statuesque figure
in red with a gold and red fan. Before introducing his
original score, Mr. Marsalis, the trumpeter, said he and
his musicians (Eric Lewis, piano; Ali Jackson, drums;
Carlos Henriquez, bass) were going to play "real soft and
nice." And so they did.

Entering with one hand on hip and the other manipulating
the fan, Ms. de Lavallade expanded her dance into an image
of proud beauty: a flaming bird of paradise.

A nod to Ms. Dunham's visits to Japan came with a refined
performance on Japanese instruments: Marco Leinhard, flute,
and Masayo Ishigure, koto.

The young groups, professionals or students, provided the
vital link in the living legacy. Percussion and dance came
from Angel Rodriguez with the Women of the Calabash and
Palo Monte's drummers with the dancers Alma Cruz and
Mikerline Pierre. Ya-Ya, a female troupe of singers and
drummers of Puerto Rican descent, were especially
refreshing, and Paulette Saint-Lot and the Ibo Dancers of
Haiti were vibrant. Marie Brooks Pan Caribbean Dance
Company performed "Hope," a
piece Ms. Brooks created after its original choreographer,
Jackie Semela, was killed in a carjacking in his native
South Africa. Miss Brooks's young students in this company
are remarkable: They dance from within.

The three-day tribute was conceived by Steven A. Watkins,
artistic director of the Pangea Theater Company, and
presented by himself and Dr. Henry Frank, executive
director of the Haitian Centers Council. In addition to
Friday's performance, the schedule of events on Saturday
and Sunday included films, discussions and a demonstration
of Dunham dance technique.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/16/arts/dance/16DUNH.html?ex=1064688716&ei=1&en=dc69b25f9971e1e7
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company