It's been a sad couple of weeks in world music; first with the death of Cheikha Rimitti, Queen of Rai Music, and now with the passings of Katherine Dunham and Hamza El Din.

Katherine Dunham passed away on Sunday, May 21 in New York City. Dunham was a pioneer of American modern dance, being the first to incorporate Afro-Latin and Caribbean dance elements into her classical training. She founded the first-ever African-American ballet troupe after visiting the West Indies on an anthropological fellowship and discovering the rhythm and intense movement of the local dance styles. Her lifelong goal was to validate "primitive" dance forms into something worth studying. She choreographed a number of musicals and operas, oversaw a performing arts school (where greats such as Marlon Brando and Charles Mingus studied), was a pioneer in the civil rights movement, toured 57 countries as a dancer, was a published author and poet, and was an adoptive mother. She lived the later years of her life in poverty and obscurity, and when she was finally convinced to move to an assisted living facility, stars such as Will Smith and Harry Belafonte footed her bills. She was 96 years old when she died, and truly a remarkable woman.

Hamza El Din, a renowned world musician, died in Berkeley, CA on May 22. El Din was one of the first musicians to re-introduce the ancient Egyptian lute known as the oud into modern world music. He was born in Nubia, a region spreading from Egypt to the Sudan, and lived his later years in the San Francisco Bay Area. El Din was a musical scholar, studying the influence of Middle Eastern music around the globe, and fascinated by finding ancient threads between genres of world music. He wrote extensively on music theory and played an important role in the popularity of African and Middle Eastern music in the United States and Europe. His skill in performance is not to be overlooked, though. He played frequently with the world-renowned Kronos Quartet, and performed many concerts on his own. Read more about El Din's life and music at World Music Central.