Women in Music Posters “D...-”
for social studies and music education classrooms, home schoolers, and inspirational decor.

Dorothy Dandridge
b. 11-9-1922; Ohio
d. 9-8-1965; California

Singer Dorothy Dandridge was the first black woman to be nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award (1954, Carmen). Dandridge's movie debut was in the Marx Brother's A Day at the Races; she was also in the film musical Porgy and Bess.

• Everything and Nothing : The Dorothy Dandridge Tragedy

Alexandra Danilova in Swan Lake Photograph Print

Alexandra Danilova
b. 11-20-1903; Peterhof, Russia
d. 7-13-1997

Prima ballerina Aleksandra Dionisyevna Danilova left Russia with George Balanchine in 1924, performing with Serge Diaghilev eventually becoming a US citizen. She danced in the 1958 Broadway musical comedy “Oh, Captain!”, and was a teacher at the School of American Ballet.

• Choura: The Memoirs of Alexandra Danilova

Katherine Kennicott Davis
b. 6-25-1892; St. Joseph, MO
d. 4-20-1980; Littleton, MA

Composer, pianist and music teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis is most noted for the Christmas song “The Little Drummer Boy” (1941) and the Thanksgiving hymn “Let All Things Now Living”, written for her school choirs. She willed the proceeds from her works to the Wellesley College Music Department.

Carmen de Lavallade, Photographic Print

Carmen De Lavallade
b. 6-3-1931; New Orleans, LA

Dancer, choreographer, professor and actress Carmen De Lavallade danced with Lester Horton, Alvin Ailey and Agnes de Mille.

Agnes de Mille Making Notes for New Dance Book at Table in Drugstore, Photographic Print

Agnes deMille
b. 9-18-1905; Harlem, NY
d. 10-7-1993

Agnes de Mille was the choreographer of such notable works as the ballet Rodeo and the musical Oklahoma!.

De Mille was from a theatrical family (she was the niece of Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille) and wanted to be an actress, but was told she wasn't pretty enough.

• No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de Mille

Celine Dion, Photographic Print

Celine Dion
b. 3-30-1968; Quebec, Canada

Celine Dion was a teen star in the French-speaking world before her first anglophone recording in 1990 established her as a pop artist in the English-speaking countries.

Devi Dja, Photographic Print

Devi Dja
b. 8-1-1914; Java
d. 1-19-1989

Temple dancer Devi Dja, who saw Anna Pavlova dance in Java, was inspired to continue dancing past the age of twelve and formed a troupe of retired temple dancers. Devi Dja was known as the “Balinese Pavlova”.

• Standing Ovations... Devi Dja! Woman of Java

Mattiwilda Dobbs
b. 7-11-1925; Atlanta, GA

Mattiwilda Dobbs, a coloratura soprano, was one of the first African-American singers to have an international opera career. She was also the first African-American member of the faculty at the University of Texas.

Isadora Duncan and Her Pupils from The Grunewald School, 1908, Giclee Print

Isadora Duncan
b. 5-26-1877; San Francisco
d. 9-14-1926

• more Isadora Duncan posters

Great Black Innovators - Katherine Dunham Poster

Katherine Dunham
b. 6-22-1909; Joliet, IL
d. 5-21-2006; NYC

Katherine Dunham is a noted dancer and choreographer who brought the dance styles of black people of the Caribbean and the United States to the attention of America at large. Born in Chicago, she attended the university there and majored in anthropology. She did a year of field work in the West Indies. This helped give her the insight she needed to develop innovative dance forms expressing Caribbean cultural styles.

Dancer Katherine Dunham Performing, Photographic Print

She choreographed and performed in a number of stage productions and films during the 1930s and '40s. She also founded the first black dance troupe – the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. But she is most proud of the Perfoming Arts Training Center, which she founded in East St. Louis, Illinois, in 1967 – and where, in her later years, she continues to touch and offer her guidance. This oasis in the middle of the poverty-stricken city has offered hope and a way out for countless numbers of troubled youth. It is here where her legacy continues, and where many young lives are changed. (published before 2006)

• Great Black Innovators Posters
• women and music posters

Duval, Swododa, Giclee Print

Paulette Duval
b. 1-15-1900; Buenos Aires, Argentina
d. ?

Paulett Duval, who was raised in France, was called the most beautiful woman in Paris. She became a Ziegfeld Follies dancer, and a fixture in Hollywood films of the 1920s.

• Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood