May 18, East St. Louis:
“DA-DUM-DUN”: Festival Honoring Miles Davis,
Henry Dumas, Katherine Dunham
An annual festival in honor of three world-class creative geniuses whose
expressions impacted—and were impacted by—East St. Louis (Illinois) will be
held on Tuesday, May 18, at 6:00 p.m., in Room 2083 of Bldg. B on the SIUE-East
St. Louis Higher Education Campus, 601 J.R. Thompson Dr., East St. Louis.
Miles Dewey Davis III, Henry Lee Dumas and Katherine Dunham—a musician, poet-
fictionist and dancer-choreographer, respectively—will be celebrated in jazz
(Miles Ahead Jazz Ensemble), literary expression (EBR Writers Club’s Soular
Systems Ensemble, featuring Michael Castro, Roscoe Crenshaw, Byron Lee, Susan Lively, Charlois Lumpkin, Patricia Merritt, Eugene B. Redmond, Darlene Roy,
Lena Weathers, Treasure Williams and Jaye Willis), dance (ESL Center for the
Performing Arts, under the direction of Theo Jamison) and a multimodal exhibit
(DavisDumasDunham, curated by Al Henderson II).
Born in Alton (Illinois), Davis (1926-1991) was raised in East St. Louis,
graduating from Lincoln Senior High School in 1944 and entering New York’s
Julliard School of Music that same year. A trumpeter revered across the globe
as a leader and re-shaper of musical tastes and styles, he died in 1991.
Drumvoices Revue, a multicultural journal co-published by SIUE and the Writers
Club, has featured poetry and photographs honoring Davis.
Writer Dumas (1934-1968), born in Sweet Home (Arkansas) and raised in New York
(Harlem), became a teacher-counselor in SIUE-ESL’s Experiment in Higher
Education program in 1967. At EHE, he mentored local poet Sherman L. Fowler and
was a colleague of Eugene B. Redmond, his current literary executor. Toni
Morrison called Dumas, who had written hundreds of stories and poems by the
time of his young death at age 33, “a genius, an absolute genius.” He is patron
saint of the EBR Writers Club, and his writings have appeared in multiple
issues of Drumvoices Revue.
Dunham (1909-2006) returned to her home state of Illinois after several decades
of studying, performing and teaching in more than 60 countries. Becoming an
East St. Louis resident in 1967, she taught in the EHE program and founded the
Performing Arts Training Center and KD Dynamic Museum. Earlier, during the
1940’s, she choreographed and starred in movies and stage productions
like “Stormy Weather”and “Cabin in the Sky.” This adopted matriarch of the ESL,
who was the first African American dancer to choreograph for the New York City
Metropolitan Opera (“Aida”), has been the subject of several volumes of
Drumvoices Revue.
Founded in 1986 and chartered by Sherman Fowler, Darlene Roy and Eugene B.
Redmond, the Writers Club meets on the first and third Tuesday, September-May,
in the room listed above. Trustees include poets-dramatists Maya Angelou and
Amiri Baraka. For more information about the Club or area cultural-literary
activities, call 618 650-3991 or write the Club at P.O. Box 6165, East St.
Louis, Illinois 62201; email: eredmon@siue.edu.
--Eugene Redman
