Krishna Kaur Khalsa is an American teacher of Kundalini Yoga as taught by

Yogi Bhajan Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (born Harbhajan Singh Puri) (August 26, 1929 – October 6, 2004), also known as Yogi Bhajan and Siri Singh Sahib to his followers, was an Indian-born American entrepreneur, yoga guru, and spiritual teacher. He introduce ...

. Born Thelma Oliver, she pursued a career in films and theater before in 1970 dedicating herself to empowering others through the practice of yoga.

Early years

Khalsa was born Thelma Oliver in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

on May 6, 1939. Her father, Cappy Oliver, played trumpet with Lionel Hampton's band and her mother tried her hand at roller skating, wrestling, and singing before settling down to raise five children. She studied dance at a school run by

Jeni Le Gon Jeni LeGon (born Jennie Ligon; August 14, 1916 – December 7, 2012), also credited as Jeni Le Gon, was an American dancer, dance instructor, and actress. She was one of the first African-American women to establish a solo career in tap d ...

before majoring in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of California in Los Angeles

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

Performing career

Oliver dropped out of school in 1961 and went East to pursue her calling as a performer. Her off-Broadway stage debut was in The Blacks by French dramatist Jean Genet, where she performed the role of Virtue along with

Louis Gossett Jr. Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. (born May 27, 1936) is an American actor. Born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, He had his stage debut at the age of 17, in a school production of '' You Can't Take It with You.'' Shortly after he successfully ...

Oliver also performed in the musicals Fly Blackbird and Cindy, and the revue The Living Premise, where in 1963 she replaced

Diana Sands Diana Patricia Sands (August 22, 1934September 21, 1973) was an American actress, perhaps most known for her portrayal of Beneatha Younger, the sister of Sidney Poitier's character, Walter, in the original stage and film versions of Lorraine Han ...

for two months. Oliver also took a number of film roles beginning with a part as a "Negro woman" in the hit South Pacific. Her contribution to the 1961 swashbuckler

Pirates of Tortuga ''Pirates of Tortuga'' is a 1961 DeLuxe Color American swashbuckler film which invented an alternate history for the actual Welsh privateer Henry Morgan. It was released in October 1961 in the United States in CinemaScope. Plot In the 17th centu ...

is not credited. In Black Like Me, released in 1964, Oliver played the role of Georgie. She performed the role of "Ortiz's girl" in Sidney Lumet's

The Pawnbroker ''The Pawnbroker'' (1961) is a novel by Edward Lewis Wallant which tells the story of Sol Nazerman, a concentration camp survivor who suffers flashbacks of his past Nazi imprisonment as he tries to cope with his daily life operating a pawn sh ...

. The cast included Rod Steiger,

Geraldine Fitzgerald Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald (November 24, 1913 – July 17, 2005) was an Irish actress and a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was listed at number 30 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Early li ...

Brock Peters Brock Peters (born George Fisher; July 2, 1927 – August 23, 2005) was an American actor and singer, best known for playing the villainous "Crown" in the 1959 film version of ''Porgy and Bess'', and the wrongfully convicted Tom Robinson in t ...

, and Morgan Freeman. It was Oliver's pivotal scene with Rod Steiger near the film's end, that drew controversy at the time, when Oliver exposed her breasts. The film was among the first American movies to feature nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. Although it was publicly announced to be a special exception, the controversy proved to be first of similar major challenges to the Code that ultimately led to its abandonment. Thelma Oliver's biggest success as a performer came when she landed the role of "Helene" in the Broadway musical Sweet Charity with

Gwen Verdon Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon (January 13, 1925October 18, 2000) was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for t ...

. Sweet Charity played at the

Palace Theatre (New York City) The Palace Theatre is a Broadway theater at 1564 Broadway, facing Times Square, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Milwaukee architects Kirchoff & Rose, the theater was funded by Martin Beck and opened in 1913 ...

from January 1966 to July 1967, 608 performances, garnering twelve

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

nominations, including an award for its choreography.

Turn to Yoga

While a 1966 Ebony Magazine profile mentions Oliver's study of "yoga philosophy and breathing," yoga became her life's calling four years later when she met

. Yogi Bhajan renamed her "Krishna Kaur" - meaning Divine Princess. Under his direction, she became a yoga teacher with a special dispensation to serve the Black community. Krishna Kaur established a yoga community in the Watts, Los Angeles neighborhood with a live-in center, children's school, day care, twice weekly free kitchen and "Sat Nam Street Players" dedicated to bringing music and inspiration to the troubled streets of the ghetto. Krishna Kaur's radical spirit found full expression in her yoga mission. In her words: "The revolution is really one of the mind. Blacks have got to realize where the power really is. The struggle is not on a physical level. It is on the level of the mind." Krishna Kaur's journey into Kundalini Yoga and the Sikh tradition of Yogi Bhajan took her to the spiritual capital of Amritsar and the "Golden Temple" or Harimandir Sahib in December 1970 and again thereafter. In August 1980 she made history when, through a combination of circumstances she became the first and only woman to have ever sung Sikh hymns within the strictly patriarchal precincts of the Golden Temple. In the 1990s, Krishna Kaur played a central role in the founding of the International Black Yoga Teachers Association. She also started up Yoga for Youth, dedicated to serving young people in trouble with the U.S. criminal justice system. Krishna Kaur is currently the Chairman of the Board of Yoga for Youth. Known for her musical talent, Krishna Kaur never gave up performing. In the 1970s, she toured and recorded with a group called "Sat Nam West." In 2014, she released an album, One Creator.

Websites

* http://www.krishnakaur.org * http://www.yogaforyouth.org *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalsa, Krishna Kaur 1941 births American yoga teachers Living people American actresses 21st-century American women