Dunham was the first person to bring black heritage in dance to the popular stage, creating an all-black troupe at a time when segregation and racial discrimination was still the norm. Her narrative style of choreography didn’t shy away from important topics; one even included a lynching. Travelling around the US, she fought racism as she went. “We weren’t pushing ‘black is beautiful’, we just showed it,” she later said.

Dunham’s blending of different dance forms, her intercultural connections and her inclusion of Caribbean and African styles truly revolutionised modern dance. Many of the next generation of important choreographers got their training as part of Dunham’s company and the Dunham Technique is still being widely taught at dance schools all over the world.

Dunham’s ideas spread out far beyond modern dance and ballet, though, helping to inspire hip hop and street dance styles still thriving today.

The Forgotten Women series is part of Stylist’s Visible Women campaign, dedicated to raising the profiles of brilliant women past and present. See more Visible Women stories here.

The true story of Katherine Dunham, the woman who made black dance mainstream