User:Altercari/Kathleen Stanford Grant

Kathleen Stanford Grant was a pilates teacher and Broadway dancer and choreographer. She was the protege of Joseph Pilates, one of his original students and one of only two people he certified. Her studio was above New York University's department of dance. She was introduced to Pilates by Pearl Lang after injuring her knee in a fall.

Kathleen Stanford was born in Boston in 1921 and lived until 2010.

She went to the Boston Conservatory of Music from the age of nine. She spent the summers of her teen years studying ballet at Carnegie Hall. She moved to New York in 1945. She studied with Joseph Pilates for 2,200 hours between 1964 and 1965 to get state-certified in rehabilitation. She started her teaching career at the studio of Carola Trier and then ran a pilates programme at Henri Bendel.

She worked with Arthur Mitchell as admistrative director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

She taught pilates at the Tisch School of the Arts as part of the dance department from 1988. She did choreography work on the 1980s film The Cotton Club. She worked for a time at the Zanzibar Club in Harlem as part of the chorus.

She danced on and off Broadway and on television, and toured in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia. She was the first black panel member of the National Endowment for the Arts. She also joined the New York Council of the Arts.