Senior Thesis: 5-6 Pages - Dance - Barnard College

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Thus, individuals of high cultural standing within the black community began to define acceptable forms of art. This was clearest in the literary field. In music and dance, a more hybrid process was at work. According to Krasner, “black modernity was a complex mixture of ideas and movements- migratory, urbanized, intellectualized, fragmentary, literary, folk, jazz, blues rhythmic, Western, and Afro-centric that created a complex, hybrid form…Black modernity represented a desire to transform the image of black culture from minstrelsy to sophisticated urbanity.” 10 The black aesthetic, which grew out of a desire by blacks to create a more accurate image of self, represented the diversity of black culture in America, incorporating traditional African and contemporary black American forms, including jazz and blues. The work produced and performed by Katherine Dunham exemplifies this aesthetic and its popularization and acceptance into mainstream American culture. Dunham created a unique style of dance incorporating formal training in ballet, modern dance, and Afro-Caribbean movement. Her stage and on-screen performances earned her great popularity spanning from the 1930s to 1960s. Like many New Negro artists, Dunham sought a reconstruction of social and cultural identity. In 1935, as a student of anthropology at the University of Chicago, Dunham was awarded a Rosenwald fellowship, which funded her trip to Haiti, Jamaica, and other countries in the West Indies. Dunham used anthropological methods of analysis to gain a better understanding of her personal roots and the African-American experience. Based on her research, Dunham developed her own technique, which she taught at her school in New York. “The Dunham technique included anatomical bases of ballet and 10 David Krasner, A Beautiful Pageant, 10. 7
modern dance that emphasized the torso movements of the primitive ritual of Caribbean-African dance and jazz rhythms.” 11 8 While the Dunham technique broke the minstrelsy conventions that limited performing arts opportunities for African-Americans, the popularity of Dunham’s work crystallized the notion that blacks were capable of only learning and performing “primitive” dance. For example, in a 1944 promotional advertisement for Dunham’s Tropical Revue words such as “heatwave”, “voodoo”, and “primitive” are used to describe the show. 12 The acceptance of Dunham’s work and technique rested on the exotic appeal of her movement and dancers. Although Dunham created a style that showcased the talent of black dancers, they were still not considered to be on the same level as white dancers. During the 1960s many blacks embraced an aesthetic of artistic and political empowerment, following the end of legal segregation. “Black Art is the aesthetic and spiritual sister of the Black Power concept. As such, it envisions an art that speaks directly to the needs and aspirations of Black America. In order to perform this task, the Black Arts Movement proposes a radical reordering of the western cultural aesthetic.” 13 As defined by Annemarie Bean, the new black aesthetic heightened the clash between the “classical” art of ballet and the “primitive” or exotic style of black dance, exemplified by Dunham. This new expression of African-Americans conflicted with the notion that black dancers were capable of performing ballet. This was complicated by the history of ballet in America. “Until 1940,” critic Anita Finkel has written, “there was virtually no American tradition of ballet, and it was Ballet Theatre 11 Kaiso! : Writings By and About Katherine Dunham, d. . Clark and Sara E. Johnson. (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), 179. 12 Kaiso!, Figure 11 13 Annemarie Bean ed., A Sourcebook on African-American Performance : Plays, People, Movements, (New York: Routledge, 1999), 55.
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Senior Thesis: 5-6 Pages - Dance - Barnard College

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