The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Katherine Dunham

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because you can create it economically depressed area the kids back and at those of you of a certain age may remember katherine dunham was a glamorous performer with a knack for turning her research on black pants and a theatrical excitement for those of you too young of

saint katharine dunham enter a day here she is on the nineteen forty nine hollywood movie cause paul it's been as bleak she danced in several hollywood films in the forties and fifties but most of her career was on the stage and broadway audiences katherine dunham was most famous for dance reviews which she choreographed and stored in much of her career was spent abroad the katherine dunham dance company visited sixty one countries over the years and was an enormous success wherever it appear particularly in europe katherine dunham has spent a lifetime straddling separate worlds the academic world of the university of chicago where she received her masters degree in anthropology and the theatrical and dance world where she gained such a claim she grew up poor and black in and around

chicago and went on to become a close friend of intellectuals artists and heads of state from all over the world as a choreographer she was one of the first to make black dancers visible as trained disciplined parts a decade ago she gave up her international tourism the bass world of new york to work in the st louis tonight a look at what this extraordinary woman has accomplished in the community that just about everyone had written off charlayne hunter gault visited katherine dunham in east st louis and its report this is the gateway arch in st louis is my new men to the promise of the midwest with other symbols around here that stand in stark contrast just across the river and the tracks is a st louis illinois a symbol of all that is wrong with america's urban centers to carry poverty high unemployment to name a few and it is here that katherine dunham chose to establish are mine the katherine dunham museum has her latest gift to the saint louis it's located on the

street where vandals have already left their mark inside business diamonds collection of folk art and musical instruments from africa and the caribbean and all the many places that she and her dance troupe visited over the years the art is here in the st louis other local residents can see what black coaches in other parts of the world have achieved cast dunham has spent a lifetime learning about afro american culture and museum is her way of passing that knowledge along she stresses that it's a living museum and that means bringing africa is here to explain their culture to american blacks these two musicians aron who's it from senegal a country where katherine dunham has close ties to katherine dunham hasn't really committed her art to east st louis she's become a permanent resident for the past ten years she's lived in this house in the heart of the ghetto across the street is a high school and used since

it was burnt out during the riots in the late nineteen sixties ever since she arrived in the st louis to become director of the performing arts training center of southern illinois university this modest house has been her home base here she is surrounded by art works in them into those gathered during her travels she says her memorabilia on the nearest thing to a permanent home she's ever has sales from africa and then just now know a lobster denies the main routes than some of the other sales are from selling pounds but for all her interest in it and black culture catherine done this first and foremost involved with dance as a performer choreographer and teacher and for ten years now she

and former members of her dance troupe had been teaching a new generation the diamond take me it's been the point the dome technique evolved from the stones' anthropological studies in the caribbean there she tracked down the dances brought from africa about black slaves she then took the movement's she found in haiti in other islands and reworked them into the dance main street the result is a kind of dancing that is strongly rhythmic sensual and jazzy this is what she's been performing and teaching to students throughout her career the classes in the st louis stevenson southern illinois university and are free to any member of the community who walks through the door i asked ms dunham about her dance technique and

this is a lie these viruses that means well it is a series of reforms and exercises developed found primitive rhythms and so then they can have their weight their eyes no space at home or that they had an acceptable for the development of the human body david lin with mars

one way out one really this is a hard place to ask people to stay they want women and they're from its hat because we're seventy thousand people no worries there were no other people of the city as i write those with happy to be here it's going to pass a master drummer and choreographer during his years at saint louis he's taken hits and never saw an african drum unchanging to be superb musicians just as the human rights rights

activists remain timing is one example of what happened and calls her magazines regular industry is into the arts another worker magnus classes in the martial law school used to africa command and have a savior de silva teaches the class into a version of african martial arts still alive in his native has made what you pretty iraqi year it came as only cultural force in this city of seventy thousand school has been able to tap the talent pool that was just waiting to be discovered the money students ms dunham has created a junior troupe ages six to thirteen will perform to local

audiences and a teacher and director of the junior company is ruby street sometimes in class at piano players go when i have located sometimes we would go up and let them i'm imagining that they wouldn't maybe animals you know they relate to animals so i think different things that that in my account james is only problem according to rubio always wants to one of the original balance didn't lose anything with his gallery geddes she began soon

after school got underway in the late nineteen sixties when the city was often in flames today she is a communications major in college and the mother of two teenage children thank you this is that i may not have been grown in

kansas is means to be a member of a local game called imperial global arts but he had his friends he says they use to steal cars and smashed windows he's been studying for three years now and people are just believe michael has a bright future as a dancer when he's ready new york to los angeles and tries lot fifty three

well we really st louis michael green and other members of the performing arts training company gave a performance at the evansville campus of southern illinois university and one of the pieces they performed with a section of a new full length work in the unconditional last more than it's called roots of a culture and the section begins with a plan to hunt and he'd left the couch at home

well it's been a pretty weak that at the

peak of the people in the polls but the pain can be quite a piece of the pie the pain to be

clear the pope and katherine dunham is now in our studios in new york ms dunham those you say below seventy special meaning for you now after ten years yes it does it's it's a city that i have grown to not only loved that need and so often people ask me why i am than i find myself looking for such excuses as oh well my archives are actually very partly in carbondale illinois and

i find that sometimes i say it's because the first polio program as needed though they're sargent shriver as we'd go and see what i could do a cultural arts i think the truth of the years that it's a matter of synchronization i have been in most countries of the world and was coming directly from africa and i saw i was supposed to be a three month old and i saw immediately the needs of the youth there and neither the city to find some sort of identification beyond burning buildings in and interesting industry going oh well they say you know that it's a depressing place these pressing plates of whatever depress you yes yes it has depressed me sometimes it feels as though i'm not making the progress that i would like to announce it has its problems economic serious economic problems

political problems and we have done with our program there i think more toward the socialization we can change very much the economics of the city that we can help to give people now walk and we can help to prepare them to take their places in in other places of the world which we call of socialization press frequently any particular things that you could cite that you're particularly proud of in terms of the socialization the process it you feel that you contributed to their nice anglo yes i'm married proud of the year the history of people who have left the center who have graduated for instance from our center and the edwards vote campus of the university and we're now in broadway plays or in other shows and summer with noon the offer and so forth i'm very proud of that and i'm also proud of those who have

chosen academic careers who've gone ahead with everything from our biology to pre medical to business administration or whatever but they have been sent out into these fields by us what effect do you think katherine and there are times when i think it has had a devastating effect on the times when i am discouraged and when i feel the drain of a constant negative influence that one can find it then i have another thing that i say in that is that my first education was the university of chicago i learn every day do you approve that maybe the atmosphere that is so pervasive well we've got through it by forming a dance

company by having really important classes in the branson the university that's a nice thing for those like taking people out of the city itself into other areas of their environment and where we see the effect of this on single individuals and actually on whole groups of beep and i think that the last thing that we that establishing a museum in the city has been extremely important in identification in the end pride giving which everyone needed i keep showing that quite a number of years in haiti we have a house they're that what you do the american even going to want to do anything i think so i think that they're both in their own way under developed countries places and the at my main interest was really what i drew from haiti it was in the

study of google doing in this day of the dancers of haiti and this civil war has meant a great deal to me so that i was actually receiving more than giving well i try to learn more as a lot to learn and i haven't finished yet what the full bloom i think that probably won't in this one lifetime she has bill know so often thought of as black magic called isn't a startling for me it's a religion and it always has been a dozen proselytize but why it's very works in its effectiveness that has the entire country is part of old dieudonne from way you imagine hulu i don't live here and i dont like

it because of the news so misused and more durable of those visits west african nation anyway with your training and five no matter all i can know sometimes when i'm unsure of where i stand with the volt do that is blue ivy league and how much i believe i can always them turn to to being a scientist those train in anthropology and get a little relief from that but i think that to work together very well and how did you minutes to sustain your relationship with the haitian governments which have been identified with economic turbulence than political repression for the most part ii tended to my own business you know i never entered into the politics of haiti also

won one book that i have written deals with three presidents that i knew i want to say yes but i have never interfered with their politics they know better than i do what the country needs and how they can achieve it what's next for you ms dunham i understand you are you working on a ball girl which is based on the correspondence between you and art of the late art historian bernard berenson is that their number one on your agenda right now for the future and it is as far as writing goes i feel that i owe a debt to grandparents and for ten years we corresponded the last ten years of his life and the answer i read in one of his books not long ago that he wished that he he had kept his letters because he felt that in his letters he probably revealed more of himself that he did in his essays and his other writing down that it seemed almost like a direct message to me because i

kept his letters and i kept the letters that i wrote him and i think of the book needs work it needs the bridging of course these are just letters almost out in space unless you know why they were written but he always said to me i wish you would be my eyes i have to travel as far as i can travel this is between the ages of eighty seven and ninety seven that he wrote this to me and that he's said for instance what do you think of the heroines or how do you feel about it mark or things like that and i enjoyed answering him and the band in turn he criticized my writing which is a great help and who does the same thing applied deriding you think you've revealed a lot in those letters about yourself man i'd been revealed elsewhere in your writing i think gary hilton far more than i intended to as i look

over and now and then i don't know how i feel about publishing them without a little editing you've been a dancer and a writer an anthropologist of leader among many many many other things what do you want people to think about when they see or hear the main road works in paris magazine asked what i would like for an epitaph and i said she tried and i think that i would like for people to feel it whenever of these endeavors i went into what i was doing it with my total self and again through this thing of synchronization just i've been because i had to me i still do because i have to like you very much or o'brien was showing that by canadian navy will be back tomorrow

night five j morrell thank you and goodnight he can transcript send one dollar mcneil lehrer report three four five you're york one yellow report was produced by wnet nw at

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