Kitty Lunn

Kitty Lunn (born 1950) is a ballet dancer, actress, disability activist, and founder of Infinity Dance Theater, a company that features performers with disabilities. Died on August 18 2026

Early life As an eight-year-old watching ballerina Moira Shearer in the film The Red Shoes, Kitty Lunn was inspired to become a dancer. She left her hometown of New Orleans to study at the Washington School of Ballet, and in her teens would go on to dance principal roles with the National Ballet. When Lunn was a 16-year old ballet student in Washington, D.C., she asked the dancer and teacher Agnes de Mille if a medical intervention could help her reach six feet tall on pointe; de Mille's answer would become a mantra for the rest of Lunn's career. "Kitty," de Mille said, "you have to learn to dance with the body you have."

Career Dance Kitty Lunn moved to New York to in 1967. In 1987, during rehearsals for her Broadway debut, Lunn broke her back after slipping on ice and falling down a flight of stairs. The resulting spinal cord injury left her paraplegic. She also performed in The Chaikin Project, directed by Joseph Chaikin in 1992 at the Public Theater, Agnes of God at the Alliance Theater, and The Waiting at the Kennedy Center.

Teaching Lunn teaches dance classes for people with disabilities in which students are taught to work within their individual limitations and "dance in the body [they] have." She differentiates her classes from the practice of dance therapy, intending them instead to provide a rigorous classical ballet education to people whose bodies move differently than the typical dancer's. Lunn's mission is to develop and instill professional standards and techniques in dancers who might otherwise not be subject to the same expectations as their non-disabled counterparts. She also provides training for dance teachers so that higher-level dancers with disabilities can have the opportunity to join mainstream classes.

Activism Kitty Lunn served on the Performers with Disabilities committees for both Actor's Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, leading negotiations for better industry compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as a broader inclusion of performers with disabilities within definitions of nontraditional casting. She received the 2004 Rosetta LeNoire award, presented by Actor's Equity in recognition of her "contributions toward increasing diversity and nontraditional casting in theatre."