Jeraldyne Blunden

Jeraldyne Blunden (nee Kilborn) (December 10, 1940 – November 22, 1999) was the founder and artistic director of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the oldest modern dance company in Ohio. In 1994, she received a "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation.

Blunden began her dance training at the age of six at the Linden Center, a recreation center in the African-American community of West Dayton, Ohio. In 1948, a number of African-American mothers approached the Schwarz School of Dance, later to become The Dayton Ballet School, about providing opportunities for their children to enroll in the school. However, segregation was common in Dayton during the 1940s and The Schwarz School of Dance had not admitted black children due to the possible ramifications to the school. Yet, despite social pressures, the founders of the school, Josephine and Hermene Schwarz, decided to break social boundaries and brought their school to African-American students through the Linden Center. Throughout Blunden's dance career, the Schwarz sisters served as her role models and mentors. The sisters helped her gain access to summer scholarships to the American Dance Festival in Connecticut. In her first year at the festival, she was the only Black student. While Blunden saw the obstacle of adding a second dance company in a city as small as Dayton, she pursued her dream and began to handpick dancers from her dance school for the company. By 1972, the dance company had twelve female company members, including Blunden's daughter, Debbie Blunden-Diggs.

Blunden's new company provided the opportunity for her to cultivate her choreographic talent through the creation of new works for her company. The performance of her ballet Flite in 1973 earned her company the honor of being the first African-American group to gain membership to the Northeast Regional Ballet Association Festival.

The year 1976 marked the company's first large-scale performance and the first time the dancers were paid for a performance. They performed Black Snow, a collaboration with acclaimed composer Roy Meriwether at Memorial Hall in front of a sold-out audience.

Over the years, Blunden shaped the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company as a repertory company, inviting many guest artists to create pieces for her dancers. Blunden had the foresight to acquire works by young, budding choreographers such as Ulysses Dove.

This also led her to cultivate young talent such as Dwight Rhoden, who founded his own company and became one of the country's most well-known dance artists. Seeing promise in both Kevin Ward, one of her dancers, and Debbie Blunden-Diggs, Blunden primed them to be her successors and created a space for Kevin Ward as director of the company's apprenticeship dance corps, DCDC2, established as the pre-professional wing of her rising touring company. Blunden fell ill in 1990, naming Kevin Ward the Associate Artistic Director of the company and Debbie Blunden-Diggs the new Director of DCDC2. 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, YWCA of Dayton

Death and legacy Blunden died on November 22, 1999, at age 58.

She left behind a legacy of an innovative dance company already receiving national and international recognition. Jennifer Dunning from the New York Times described Blunden's legacy as a beloved leader in the dance world, stating, "That no-nonsense approach to life was mixed with steely determination, a great personal warmth and humor and an unsentimental humanity that made her a much-loved figure on the national dance scene".

Her legacy has been carried on by her daughter Debbie Blunden-Diggs and granddaughters Alexis Diggs and Lyndsey Diggs. DCDC is now run by Debbie, her daughter, and DCDC2 is run by Shonna Hickman-Matlock.