Pilates Foundations, Pilates Sculpt
Before beginning her career as a dance educator, Sarah Holmes worked as a national and international teacher trainer with Peak Pilates and Balanced Body. As a lifelong dancer, she believes in the body’s capacity to heal through movement and creative expression. She holds a Ph.D. in Dance History and Theory from the University of California, where her research examined issues surrounding race, class, and gender in Pilates practice. She received an M.A. in dance from Mills College, Oakland, CA, focusing on choreography and the history of 20th-century choreographer’s use of space as a political response to a turbulent social climate. Lastly, she holds a B.A. in economics from Scripps College, Claremont, CA, and, as an undergraduate, researched the national and local economic benefits gleaned from government funding for the arts. Following her graduation from Mills College in 2002, she pursued a career in Pilates. She started working in Eugene, Oregon as an apprentice instructor. She later moved to Los Angeles where she began her work with Peak Pilates as a teacher-trainer. In 2009, she developed a low-cost private Pilates program at the Santa Monica, CA, YMCA. From 2008-2014 she worked with Peak Pilates as an “MVe” Teacher Trainer, and more recently, as a Master Instructor teaching both nationally and internationally. Currently, she works with Balanced Body as a Master Instructor, training students in the Pilates method. Over the years, she has worked with hundreds of clients, Pilates instructors, physical therapists, somatic practitioners, and dancers. In 2014, she returned to the American Dance Festival (where she began her formal Pilates training in 2001) as a Pilates teacher. Dr. Holmes continues to be passionate about spreading the benefits of the practice. Her scholarship has been published nationally and internationally, and her recent book, The Pilates Effect (2019) grew from her life experiences and out of her doctoral research. She has taught modern dance, dance history, dance kinesiology, and Pilates as an Assistant Professor of Dance at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. Currently, she is working towards an MFA in Dance at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee where her research examines the intersection between choreography, self, empathy, technology, transference of labor, and neurological disease.