The Story Of My Song

Wow [inaudible] let's take it back there. [inaudible] your head. Life is a collection of experiences. The things we have done, the way we have lived, the people we have met who challenged, guided and shaped our views and extraordinary life is one where we pass on what we have learned with generosity, vigor and honesty. It is the extraordinary life of Kathleen Stanford grant that I would like to share with you. [inaudible] the story begins in 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Imagine yourself here. A young black girl being raised in a predominantly white neighborhood or dream is to become a classical ballet dancer. The reality in a racially segregated country is there's no such thing as a black classical dancer, but this is not something a young girl understands. [inaudible] in the early 1930s Kathleen Stanford is admitted as the first black student in the Boston Conservatory of Music stance program. Just one of many firsts that Kathleen goes on to pioneer like all young dancers, Kathleen dreams of New York City.

[inaudible] in the mid 1940s Kathleen moves to New York still with the hopes of becoming a classical ballerina. When she arrives in the city, she quickly learns. Her options are limited and she takes a job as a chorus girl at the Zanzibar nightclub. The Zanzibar is a place where black performers play to white only audiences. There are many doors shut to Kathleen's dreams, but that does not stop her. She wants to dance and she is both talented and determined.

[inaudible] Kathleen goes on to dance and Broadway's first racially integrated show titled Finian's Rainbow. She moves abroad and performs professionally for five years in Europe and in the Middle East enjoying the freedom that many black Americans dream of before coming back to is still racially divided America with the odds still against her and on the heels of the civil rights and feminist movements. Kathleen continues to follow her dreams, but in the early 1950s Kathleen sustained a severe injury to her knee while performing. Her dancing is brought to a halt. A fellow dancer tells Kathleen do go see a man who will help her with her injury. This friend promises that this man will make her dance again and in 1953 Kathleen begins her studies with Joseph h [inaudible], a meeting that profoundly shapes her life. Kathleen does dance and she continues to study with Mr. Potties.

It's at this time that her career explodes and 1957 she takes a job assisting Cruela tree air and the second Palati studio to open a New York City studious and curious. Kathleen finds in Corolla yet another teacher who would go on to inspire her own creativity and healing skills. In 1964 she becomes one of the first students to be certified to teach the work of Joseph h [inaudible]. In 1965 she travels to Kaneohe West Africa with activist and performer Harry Belafonte as a cultural consultant on a special project to record film and study the music and dances throughout the country. In 1967 she becomes the director of the Clark Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

Pioneering access to arts education and performance opportunities for minorities. In 1970 she joins Arthur Mitchell in a one year grant funded project to create the first black American classical ballet company and dance theater of Harlem was born in 1971 she's the first black American to serve on the national endowment of the arts panel. In 1972 she is invited to take over the Pilati studio at Henri Bendel's department store. It is here that she begins to develop her unique and inspired techniques for teaching what today we call the [inaudible] method. In 1983 she's invited to work as assistant choreographer on a Francis Ford Coppola movie titled the Cotton Club in the late 1980s Cathy grant, as she has come to be known in the plot, is industry moves her studio from Bendel's to New York University's Tisch School of the arts dance department.

She continues to craft her techniques and opened her heart to the countless students that flocked her classes and to her tiny studio for the next 30 years. Kathy dedicates herself to this work and to the dancers, the artists and the injured who she guides with her poetry, her hands and her grace. She gives generously and wholeheartedly teaching all of us to know ourselves, our potential, our bodies. Her work becomes a combination of an extraordinary life lead. It was never predictable to be with Kathy. Hers was a tough love, but a love that gave you what you needed to improve, to face your limitations and to surpass your expectations.

She gave us ourselves. She gave us our freedom. When Kathy died in 2010 at the age of 88 she left us with an enduring gift, the example and the wisdom of how to hold ourselves in this world. I invite you to get to know and be inspired by the extraordinary life and work of my teacher, my friend, my mentor, Kathleen Stanford Grant [inaudible] prepared like pairing the body to do his sights and the stones so that you don't get a nap. Then the younger wobbly now and then no matter where you go, you have to remember your center. You don't do it physically, you do it mentally, it would inside.

Let your mind direct your body. It's really, really quiet. You got to know where your strong point is and as you get better, try and go to the weak point belly button to the lowest part of this zip tape. Measured zip tape measure, Zip, right? Perfect. You Sing my song. When you come back to center and you sing it zip belly button to the back of the waistline, put the belt down, put the best on tape. Measure it's zip and tape measures, Zip and tape measures, Zip and tape measure, right? This is how you learn to do your teaser. You end the visually have to know where your strength is.

So here we go. You individually must figure it out and don't lift it up and don't let your ego get in the way. I cannot see teaching the hundred when people don't understand their bodies. So what I've created is called before the hundred is sort of like a fighter. He's trained himself. I mean all the other athletes, the a hundred is really the program. I want them to be know their body so well.

I can just go into the a hundred so what I've been doing is getting them strong by creating exercises before the hundred hang in there. Not yet. Remember, always have an elegant, always look like you know what you're doing. Open your eyes because I wouldn't believe you. The is important. You have to know where your strongest point is and nobody, I don't care who we are can teach each of you. You got to take the responsibility. So no matter whose class you go to, you know who you are. You have to find your own balance.

Your head has to look straight ahead. Yes, you got to trust yourself. [inaudible] I always wanted to be in Belding really didn't want to do ethnic dance. It just, I didn't feel flow in Boston. Ballet was considered white folks dancing so we can do it. Folks dancing and I was taunted all the time to study at the Boston [inaudible] music. I had to go and when nobody else was there, because I was abroad, I can remember class. They didn't let you hurt yourself, but they knew you weren't gonna go anywhere with it because in order for you as to to become famous, I have to go someplace and if I'm black, right, it goes, there's no place for me to go.

I left Boston around 16 or 17. You have to remember, weren't audition for Blackfeet. Does that have to, was the only place and wasn't any other place? No. For the black performance and those attributes, they made me captain. I worked with every no black performer.

Um, Nat King Cole Lillia sound sure integration wasn't done in the Broadway scene. Finian's rainbow was the first really integrated show. There was a real mixture. I mean there were equal, you knew there were black people and they weren't just token. I know we had a lot of fathers on tour because we couldn't stay with the white kids cause we couldn't stay in the same hotel. No, no. I said no, go away.

They'd want us to be satisfied that the show was integrated as bracket. And you said, no way. It must have talked to the road because we then ended up leading that vineyards and almost went right to Europe because there was no work here. So there a lot of this kids went to your leave went because to dance the awkward or in the living in Europe much more than here being free. I think for the first time from this country is what I remember being in Europe for us was that we could go anywhere we wanted to without having to think about it to be free, but in the back of your mind, no matter where you go, you have to come back. I didn't do as much for this others because I got hurt around me.

Listen, the fifties and I had two knee operations on the same leg within a year and those days they didn't have physical therapy. They didn't even have sports medicine that was come much later. So they didn't know anything about dancers. And so, um, they, they didn't have any solution to my knee problem. And pro-line remember purline who was a dancer with Martha Graham. I ran into her at the ballet class and every time I did it deeply, the tears would come down. And so she said, stop, I don't want to see you in this studio anymore.

I want you to go to Joe [inaudible]. And so I said, who's Joe Polite? That's all right. She said, he will make you dance again. You know, I thought I'm gonna go there and he's going to make me laugh like that. So when I went to him, he said, you don't know how to walk in. You don't know how to stand. And he made me walk and he criticized my walk.

And I remember him saying, Putin, you're pulling a string. You pulling a string back with bowling. And I was really very angry because that's not how I thought I was going to dance. And so I finally said to him, well, what's this has to do them? And he asked me these questions. He said, can you run for the bus? I said, oh no. You know, the big step on the bus, he said, can you make the big step? I said, no, Mr Poli and everything. He asked me, I said, no, you know, can you run up your stairs? He said, well, how can you dance if you can't do everyday ordinary things? How you expected?

You know, he would say, that's good. Yeah. Oh that's bad. Yeah. When he never said what's good or bad about it. So [inaudible] enough goods and enough bads gave you a sense of what was good to him and what was bad because he never said that bad because your head is down or that and so you, you, you remembered what the good was. Yeah. You really did. So that you can repeat it. I would stay so long. He'd say, go get out.

And I thought that was terrible because I thought the longer I stayed the better. He said, no, so much time for this and so much time for that and you don't overdue. And he was very, very, very persistence in the sense of the inequality, the outer quo. And you had to become independent, a Lovett. He, he always said, if you couldn't take it, I, I can't, I don't live with you. I don't go home with you. So you have to make it yours. And that's the way I teach it.

Please do not look at the pictures, even of a male of female and assume that were his hands are USAA. Don't do that. You're not miss the polarity. You understand what I'm saying? You look in the picture and his hand. Let's say we'll be here and you're going to struggle and your clients might be here for you. Remember that? Do not look at a picture and think his hand until your hand has to be there.

You keep fooling around with this machine until you know where you individually can push this thing down. Sure. Okay. That's enough. Ladies. You really, really have to do some Burt, you push up. They're really bad. No. If you're going to do Polina's I told you it was made for men and it was made for the military and the military. I don't know how many pushups they had to do every morning and I'm sure it was a lot. Okay, so you can't give me the little knee bend pushups.

They don't work because when you get ready to go in that machine, if you're going to do plugs, you really, really need to get your pushups to go. It wasn't made for us. It was made for men. You've taken it over. So as I look at politeness, it's become quite feminine, but I don't want you to forget the masculinity of it. Then that's part of it. I happen to know that anatomically, we're a lot lower in the back. The most men, we have a longer back than most men. So when I say belly button to the lowest part of your waistline, you have that. You have that option. And in the time of Mr Polaris, you did from the belly button straight to the back, that was common.

It was done. I remember being political at the wall, trying to erase, trying to erase the natural curve. I have tried to bring it to what is considered today's posture, also the medical profession, etc. Etc. Etc. If Mr PyLadies power punch serves, you, don't change it. You just have an option. I don't want you to change it because I show you this. If it works, don't change it, but if it doesn't work, you have an option. When I'm teaching, I try. I don't waste my time by saying don't do that.

Don't do that. I give them something new. What I do now is with the breathing, I fine. The reason I've changed things is because more people are doing yoga and yoga, breathing and polities breathing are not compatible. So when they have yoga Palabra these, that just drives me nuts. So rather than fight the system, I give you breathing that nobody does that. It's, you don't have to compare it and you have to worry about it.

You really have to work at the Brisbane breathing into the rhythmic pattern of the, of the body. Do you use the same breathing for swimming? You do not. Do you use the same breathing for swimming that you do for, for skiing. So the breath is has to be relative to what you're doing and not just inhale and exhale all the time without a rhythmic sense of inhaling and exhaling. Sure. Okay. I've got to put a little soul.

[inaudible]. Here we go. You Ready? Whoa. There you go. That's the mini breathing. And don't you think it's easier to introduce the hundred with the mini breathing? And one thing about the voice and teaching, a lot of you when I use the voice and he's going to show you and you're going to do it after awhile, you can hear we have a whole lot of people but you can tear that off.

You can hear that [inaudible] right and we've run over there [inaudible] yeah, so, so yes, I have a sense of humor. Thank God. You know you can be gruff and mean. It's trying to get somebody to do something so fun and so on. So I then I still stay, I'm still staying strict but I give you a little tunes too, male or female to get over the disappointment of not being able to get up and, and yet you can see him. The thing about the guys is they can leave across the floor and they can do it, but the kids sit up minus so they know like you see, so they are born.

It's absolutely they avoided. Yeah. Avoided like the play. So I discovered I had to give my guy something that covered their weaknesses, you know what I mean? And I gave him models. [inaudible] when you get to your weak point, you squeeze those balls and they'll get you past your weak point. You understand what I mean? Also the ball, you know, balls rolled. So when you go down, think of the ball rolling. Here we go.

You can harm if you want. You can whistle if you want. I don't hear anything. What, where you shouldn't ever forget in your history of this system. Remember those who are pioneers. They may not have become famous, but they stuck to it. I want you to remember this because I don't want you to forget Corolla tree. I studied with Joe Politely, but I worked for curl chewier and Corolla Chu was the son of Mr.

Pool. Even though they teach dance history, they, they don't always include many people. They say Graham, oh or oh what's his name? Merce Cunningham. No, and there were others. Yeah. There's two people that you don't know about and I really want you to know. One is eve gentry and the others corrode two year parole. He used to say this is like the frame and you look through the window so you pick up the hen and all I've done is added the figure three.

It's the same looking through the window, I want you to boast to remember egg and it's called thread the needles. I have certain of their movements that I put in the repertoire of, of the polarities, you know, it keeps the work alive. The bog reading is something that I borrowed from Irene Dowd. No, you know what? She had to think when you exhale. Think of spilling wine on a white tablecloth and what you treat.

Come Front. Here we go. I bought this from Ron flagship. Thank you. What it does is bring the whole class together. It's it closes. Clara said to me, we have only touched the tip of the iceberg. There's far to go with this word. I always give options because this Joe's way was just Joe's way. I worked with Corolla. Corolla had a certain, there's, there's a similarity to everything that we all do.

There's a little difference in the, in the, the grammar or the, the collaboration of the words and the sentences get a little lower, get it at the higher, we're going to give it a little bizarre. We're going to do the same exercise in it. I call it the Harry Bell of up a little low. We're down a little high down, a little lower up, a little high, whatever you want and down the lid. Who Lo or, and when you reach the impossible, you stay there for 30 reps. You heard me, come on, hit it. One, two, three, four, five.

My background is a theater. It's dance. It's defined the scenes in front of the scenes and I like a little bit of drama. I think of him frustrated Korea and kick, kick and hold and kick, kick and hold and kick, kick and hole. And Fan kicking. Hold it. You're late. You're late fan kicking. Hold it. Hold it. Bang leg pull front. Take the leg back.

Right and then kick and hold it. You're lazy and fan kicked and hold it and fan kick and hold it. No, you're going to do a slow fan kicks. Slow, slow and hold it and kick and Oh fan, kick and whole and fan kick. Hold it. That's it. I had, I always liked to tell you a little story. This woman came in and says, what is this? It's this polite. Oh, she said, I wrote a bit. Has No cardiovascular issues low. Yeah. Back in and back and then come back. Then you can add your, so up and up.

Let's get your written and strained. [inaudible] and straight in the head. So lead, bring it down and don't stop. Don't stop. Under stretch and under [inaudible] and under s o u also. Yeah, I like it. Okay. What does that mean? Dance like you have now. You weren't welcome. I mean you can walk in the door and go. You got Walker, you can. Nobody says anything.

And so black Samson listen out for black dancer. Well, the black choreographer it was doing, it was the only place that a lot of them did their first concert at Clark. Everything. Did anyone do [inaudible] but I had a good time doing things. There's a whole bunch of people that did their first concerts. That's what it was all about.

[inaudible] I learned to make up things because I stoned at work for the children and danced in your column. They gave me little bits and pieces of of simplicity in imagination. I want you to think of the others of a cow. Don't let them hang. Keep it smooth. It's almost like sailing on the smooth. See, do Rachel's head. Come on, do Rachel's and you know that's right.

There he is. That's it. I mean, he's singing his song and he goes and he, he's really on that piano. He's born from side to side. He's having a ball. Can be a cat. It's not a question of whether you do and what I want, but it's a question of being a cat. You cannot do it right or wrong. You're either a cat or you're not, you can't. Nope. Two cats are the same. So you're not learning a movement. You are cat friendly, friendly, and with eyes. If they get to know each other, they might like each other.

You're going to write that down. There you go. See, so you have so many images can be creative or you can be practical. [inaudible] [inaudible] this is what I have to work. And no windows, no window. Now though, even though Mr [inaudible], he set it up, the person who, who decorated, she had dropped the ceiling. Every time I had to do the Cadillac at the pool, the Cadillac out, and then push the Cadillac. You know, if I didn't use the mat, I passed it on the wall. If I was going to do the foot chair, then you couldn't do the math [inaudible] so a lot of things were born from that particular atmosphere.

[inaudible] and I learned to be very good at, you know, maneuvering people so that they got the best and coming up with little things to keep this person occupied. And the person I was working with on the reformer. I think I became rather good at one-on-one collectively, and I had people from all ages and all walks of life. So it was kind of people that I'm not trying to cause you some flat stony. Yes. I'm trying to produce really strong for the body and the abdominal muscles. The person I had to create things because people have problems and I had nowhere to go.

This right. Deviation. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] I use the one that chair as a rehab for knee people. I can't tell you how many needs that have gotten better from the one that chair. I teach at New York University to School of the arts, and I had a young man at school and NYU who was really bow legged. Okay.

And it was bothering him in, in dance. And so I all I did for him, this is something that you can do and he doesn't have to be a dancer. I put all the balls in and every day he came up and stuck with the balls in five minutes. That's it. Part of PyLadies is also a healing thing, both mentally and physically. We had a nine 11 I was teaching in early in the morning and we heard all this noise and carry on. We did see the plane go in.

But when I want to get to this so much more is that that studio with with the influence of politeness was a place of kindness. Even if you have different political views. It helped me and it helped them to get through. And I think if anything that I have done is that that Joe Pilati studio was open to all races, religions, political views and so forth. And uh, and that also goes, I think in the work itself.

He always said, if you can't, you know, if you can't change mentally, you cannot change fits within that something which I try and pound out to people. We also didn't work this exclusivity that you all do one-on-one. However, when I went to him as an engine person, there was the one on one and he had a separate place. And then as you got better, I then went into the main studio, which is the way I work now. I don't know whether it's right or wrong, but that's where I was introduced to fly from a one on one situation because of an injury and then to the big studio to learn the other things. We did the [inaudible], she does this one against the wall.

She does the footwork on the reformer. She does the Jack Knight. Yes. So let Alison do the Jack Knife up there and I'm [inaudible] Oh, she can do the arm chiefs, so therefore you can do that. But no, no. Put The ball in your Chin and then rolled down shoulders. That's it. Shortly before comments. All right, this is what I do.

I'm going to take an engine foot. You can feel a bit, then you can bring it in, bring it in. You still can bring it [inaudible] bring it in hold, don't move. Leave it. Relax easy. Let it go. Right. Bringing in stuff. It goes back to Paul Taylor's kids, all those guys when need people and I simply guys not that doing the jumps after the jumps, you know, jumping like if you hurt your foot or you need jumping, it's like, no, I can't jump. I can't jump up. And I go and I dyed it and then I can tell when they get it because then I take my hands off and they have it.

These are the little things that I've learned to do an intuition. If I see him cringe, I want to know why he's cringing. That's it. Now bring your legs towards that. That pole. Go ahead. You got it. You got it. You have it. You have it. See that strength because this is strong. Breathe through the sternum bone, the yellow room. Come on, let the breath come down. When you get to you, you start the ball breathing.

See, come on down. Easy. See the ball breathing open sis. It's the only breathing. I swear to you that will bring you down without dropping because if it spread, go ahead. How aware are you? What else do you have to call? Oh, okay. Picture, bounce, bounce together together, bounce, bounce together to get bound. It does represent fun to me. I can't see your ball and not have fun.

So everything is, I just say no. Basta enough. Let's have some fun, bumped and boom and boom, boom. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. There's nothing wrong with your foot. Well bye bye. Bye. Doesn't that foot feel better? Bye.

I liked the stretches, but that takes time. I think we ought to leave the stretches out. The stretches out. Yes. I think you're right. You understand what I'm saying? I think we the NFI forget you just, we're gonna do the building. Meg's okay. And then we're gonna go right into the turnout. We have to go down street and, and change and change.

Since they don't do the reforma and they don't do the Cadillac, I give things that represent the springs, so it's not outside of the system, but it's segues from one thing to the other. Supine position. Arms over the head, the ball in the chin. Open the arms. Bend your knees when your head genies and exhale supine. Position The ball under your chin, arms over the same level, torso and legs open and take your head down for the bicycle setups. Arms down by your side. You're going up a hill. Bend your knees.

You're going up a hill. How can you go up a hill unless you pull? Stretch it like springs. Bring your head up in the direction of the hill. Put your hands on your head. Squeeze your fist tight, right. Hold onto the right leg with both hands stretched up to the ceiling. The left leg is one foot from the ground. Lower for the single leg.

Straight stretch. Paul. Paul Changed Paul. Paul Changed Paul. Paul changed heading forward. Head before a gym. Ball under the Chin and stretch. Really stretch, stretch, nice straight like straight leg straight, very lovingly without sticking your butts out, you're going to come up. You know [inaudible]. You are not going to stick the butts out. You got Quads, you've got dominant muscles, you've got everything. Use it. Now's the time to put it all together.

We're getting ready to do the a hundred here we go. And Inhale, put the ball in your Chin and exhale, don't pan again. Inhale straight on. Don't panic. Rapid a little bit more and inhale. That's it. No shoulders. Exhale. I'm going to cut it soft because of the time. Exhale. Bend your knees and put your head down.

Extend the legs on the floor. Relevate second position in the arms. You know what you're doing. Now you know what you're doing by this time belly button to the lowest part of the waistline, right? I don't want the bikini, but this is where we don't use it. You have the tape measure. You have your belt. You bring the arms up under our muscle under arm, under arm. Thank you. Heels down sloppily.

Open the arms. Exhale, tell me something. Yes. Thank you God. [inaudible] you see how strong the girls are? One of the things that I never thought I would see is all these many people really truly dedicated and interested in maintaining the work of Mr. Mrs floody. Claren, Joe Palati. [inaudible] yeah, you got me. You got me, you got me. You got money.

Now inhale with the stomach in ladies and lower the back just to right. No. Inhale and come up with an exhale. It's not making [inaudible]. Inhale and exhale low. Keep the stomach in. That's it. You got it. You didn't. Hell. Exhale. That's it. That's it. That's it. That I love you all. You see how easy it is?

It's time for me to go then. Pretty soon. Yeah. Okay, you're ready. Lift up. One, two, take good. Down the leg. Sweet. Counts up to three. Take it down to three. Take it up to three. Take it down. Two pots together. Lift up. One, two, three. Hold it for hold it five. Hold it. Six Oh seven take it down to three. Lift.

One, two, three. Hope good. Kick. Hey, and stay there. Come on up. Get those elbows up. You can do it in our thighs. Perfect. Not Bad. Uh, take a shape and let that shape rise towards the ceiling effortlessly and wait list.

There's no tension in your body. You are a shape, not a human shape. Look at your shape in the palm of your hands. Very jazz move. Allow your shape to float down towards the earth. Let your shape flow downward down, down.

Your shape has lost its shape, but it hasn't lost its energy. So therefore, take another shape and let it float gently towards the sky gesture. Towards this day, you can think of snow falling. You can think of rain rolling down the window pane. Allow your shape to float downward just before it touches the earth.

It takes another black [inaudible]. It doesn't really state, it just keeps moving. He just keeps moving, moving, moving. And once again, allow your shape to float over your body, over your head and gently. It's floating downward, but it hasn't reached the earth yet. And something in the wind brings it back to [inaudible] originally warm and gently. It suspends itself and it gently floats. Fruits, fruits. Hello. [inaudible] [inaudible].

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