Without my husband's costumes I wouldn't have known how to accomplish what I saw in my own mind's eyes for choreography. And then seeing our choreography and knowing the background of it I am sure helped my husband a great deal with what he designed for us.

They had particular success in Denmark and France. Despite these successes the company frequently ran into periods of financial difficulties as Dunham was required to support all of the thirty to forty dancers and musicians.

Dunham was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader in the field of dance anthropology or ethnochoreology. For almost thirty years Katherine Dunham maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company the only self-supported American black dance troupe at that time and over her long career Katherine Dunham choreographed more than ninety individual dances. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in American and European theater of the 20th century and directed her own dance company for many years.