Aschenbrenner, Joyce 1931-

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ASCHENBRENNER, Joyce 1931-

PERSONAL:

Born March 24, 1931, in Salem, OR. Education: Tulane University, B.A., 1954, M.A., 1956; University of Minnesota, Ph.D., 1967.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, IL 62025; Dunham Museum, 1005 Pennsylvania Avenue, East St. Louis, IL 62201. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Curator. Wisconsin State University, River Falls, instructor of sociology, 1965-67; Augsburg College, associate professor, 1968-70; University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, assistant professor, 1967-74; Southern Illinois University, associate professor of anthropology, 1974—; curator and education coordinator, Katherine Dunham Museum, East St. Louis, IL.

MEMBER:

American Anthropological Association.

WRITINGS:

Lifelines: Black Families in Chicago, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (New York, NY), 1975.

(Editor, with Lloyd R. Collins) Processes of Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Mouton (The Hague, Netherlands), 1978.

Katherine Dunham: Dancing a Life, University of Illinois Press (Urbana, IL), 2002.

Aschenbrenner has also published scholarly work in anthropology journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Joyce Aschenbrenner is curator and education coordinator at the Katherine Dunham Museum in East St. Louis, Illinois, and a professor emerita at Southern Illinois University, where she taught anthropology.

In Lifelines: Black Families in Chicago Aschenbrenner presents a study of African-American families in Chicago, telling their stories and exploring their values. In American Anthropologist, Jacqueline S. Mithun wrote that Aschenbrenner's portrayals of the families, "through rich autobiographies, stress the interactions between generations, siblings, parents and children, and males and females," and called the book "commendable" and "highly readable and enjoyable."

Processes of Urbanism: A Multidisciplinary Approach, which Aschenbrenner coedited with Lloyd R. Collins, is a collection of scholarly articles on urbanism. The articles were originally presented at a symposium held at the Ninth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. Contributors to the volume come from Africa, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and the United States, and represent scholars, industry, and public services.

In Katherine Dunham: Dancing a Life Aschenbrenner presents a biography of Dunham, a choreographer, dancer, and dance teacher who founded the first self-supporting African-American dance company. As an anthropologist, Aschenbrenner emphasizes Dunham's views on anthropology and dance and their connection to her work as a social activist. Dunham drew on African dance movements that she learned in 1935, when she spent nine months traveling in Haiti, Trinidad, Jamaica, and Martinique, by watching local dancers and filming them with a 16-mm camera. After returning to the United States she took some of these movements and incorporated them with ballet movements and modern dance techniques in order to make them more accessible to American audiences. At the time, these techniques were revolutionary, since most African-American dancers had few opportunities and were limited to tap or acrobatics.

Aschenbrenner describes Dunham's life and work, but also tells stories of her dancers' touring experiences and discusses the community and educational programs Dunham began in East St. Louis. Aschenbrenner told Vanessa Jones in Dance Review, "People said, 'Katherine Dunham—she's never been political.' At that time she said, 'Well, people don't know me.'" Dunham refused to perform in front of segregated audiences, and was the choreographer of "Southland," a piece about lynching that angered the U.S. government.

While writing Dunham's biography, Aschenbrenner relied on Dunham's published memoirs A Touch of Innocence and Island Possessed, as well as information from archives, interviews with Dunham's colleagues, students, and dance company, and personal reminiscences. Aschenbrenner told Jones, "At first I was kind of scared of her. She's a very charismatic figure. I was afraid I'd make a wrong step."