KATHERINE DUNHAM

June 22, 1909 - May 21, 2006

"When you have faith in something, it's your reason to be alive and to fight for it."

-- Katherine Dunham

Darryl Braddix

Principal Dancer/Guest Artist/Choreographer | DunhamTechnique

CERTIFIED MASTER -- PATC

Former principal dancer on tour with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, Darryl Braddix is a native of East St. Louis, IL.  A former fireman by trade, Mr. Braddix was recruited into the Dunham regime while still a youth.  He received training at the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC), and was lead instructor while there.  Mr. Braddix toured with the company performing original works including “Floyd’s Guitar Blues” – a bluesy duo classic of Miss Dunham. Other programs on tour included an African suite, a South American suite ("Carnival," "Damballa," and "Los Indios"), and North American "Poems of Militancy" and "Afro-Jazz," with Julius Hemphill and Mor Thiam. In 1973, Glory Van Scott and Darryl Braddix danced "Floyd's Guitar Blues" in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as a part of a pre-bicentennial festival staged by Agnes de Mille. Most of the performances were in the college circuit and at politically oriented activities.

In 1981, a CBS grant enabled Miss Dunham to continue working with children and to transform the carriage house on the museum grounds into a dance studio. The program began officially in 1982, with children between the ages of four and twelve. The core teaching staff included Darryl Braddix and Ruby Streate. Other teachers, from the greatly reduced PATC and from Cosaan—Mor Thiam's dance company—as well as Lee Nolte, a ballet teacher currently with the St. Louis Center of Contemporary Arts, joined the staff on a rotating basis.   At the Children’s Workshop, the children learned Dunham technique, ballet, African ritual movements, and dances of Haiti and other Caribbean countries. A favorite piece, "Rainforest," employs African and Haitian themes; it includes the Malinke—vigorous movements performed at puberty ceremonies, Mahis—gestures describing the planting of crops, and the Watusi, an adrenaline-increasing movement in preparation for war or other aggressive acts.   Mr. Braddix continues to reside in East St. Louis, IL and is committed to the legacy through the furtherance of the Katherine Dunham Children’s Workshop.

@2005 - 2007 www.katherinedunham.org   All Rights Reserved.

Dunham Institute-Atlanta, Inc. | P.O. Box 361780 | Decatur, GA  30036-1780

Founded in 1989

Katherine Dunham and student at Southern Illinois University, c1960s.