 In 1944, Katherine Flowers opened the Flowers School of Dance in Chicago, teaching ballet and classical dance while forming a group of professional dancers known as the Katherine Flowers Dancers.By 1949, when she retired from public school teaching, she was devoting all her time to the dance company, with a production titled Bamboula to Ballet (later Bamboula to Bop) which presented the development of a truly African-American style of dance.The company made successful tours of the United States and Israel in the early 1950s which enabled her to join her son and daughter who had settled in Los Angeles.