1940 – 1999
Jeraldyne Blunden was the founder and artistic director of the esteemed Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC), the world’s largest repository of reconstructed dance works by Black American choreographers. Blunden also founded Jeraldyne’s School of Dance. The school has given many Miami Valley youth the opportunity to learn about modern dance and pursue a dancing career. Blunden won international acclaim for her work as a
choreographer and teacher and received significant recognition including a 1998 Dance Magazine Award, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Award. In 1997, she was named one of
five Dance Women: Living Legends, “for keeping dance alive.”