STEPHANIE GRANT
Highland dancer
Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame
Inducted: July 11, 2019
Grant (right) competing at the 2003 Antigonish Highland Games.
Stephanie Grant (left) presents the Florence MacMillan Trophy to third-time winner Sarah McKenna at the 2009 Highland Games. The trophy is awarded annually since 1967 for the top performer of Flora MacDonald’s Fancy. Stephanie, along with Sabra MacGillivray are the only five-time winners of the trophy. All three ladies hail from Antigonish County.
Stephanie Grant of Antigonish began dancing lessons at the age of four, under the direction of Janice MacQuarrie. In her nearly twenty years of teaching Stephanie, Janice recognized her unique talent and pushed her to greatness, instilling in her the characteristics and attitude she needed to become a champion.
Stephanie won her first Canadian championship in Calgary when she was 14. She will never forget coming from the stage and running into her mother’s arms to hug her. It was one of her proudest moments. In her own words, Stephanie says “I had won the Canadian Champion sword, and the look on my Mum’s face when she ran towards me matched the feeling I had inside. We had both practiced and worked so hard for years, travelled together, gone through the ups and and downs of a competitive dancer, and I did it… I accomplished my dream.”
After that Canadian championships, Stephanie came home to Antigonish and won practically every competition she entered, taking first place in the Fling, the Sword, the Seann Truibhas, the Reel and another first in the premier national dances while competing against older girls. It was just one of many victorious days for Stephanie in her hometown. Her wins here in Antigonish are too many to mention, but to give you an idea of why she won so many, we need only to listen to the words of a fellow dancer, Kim Dickson, writing about Stephanie:
“Her carefully executed movements are complemented by a poise and grace that is as much balletic as it is Highland. Her energy is boundless as she elevates into a leap with ease and lands as softly as wisps of thistle down. Her expression is serene yet confident. Each audience is drawn to this champion and the stage belongs to her.”
Stephanie is the most awarded Nova Scotia dancer of all time. She is seventeen times a Nova Scotia Champion and two times a Canadian Champion. She has placed in the top six at the Canadian championship 11 times. She has represented Canada in the world championships on many occasions and has been in the top 6 in the world five times, finishing as first runner up in three of those championships.
Here at home, Stephanie has won the Florence MacMillan Memorial Trophy more often than any other dancer. The trophy has been awarded at our Games every year since 1967 to the top performer in the Flora MacDonald’s Fancy. Competing against all the top dancers, Stephanie won her first Flora in 1999. In the next eight years she would win this most prestigious of Highland Games trophies five more times.
Stephanie says that her proudest moment on the Highland Games stage was during her last year of competitive dancing in 2007.
“I had won the Florence MacMillan Memorial Award several times before, but this year, which was a personal best year overall, I felt even more proud that I was winning an award won by so many Champions, including Janice Macquarrie and Gerarda MacDonald, women I looked up to and was encouraged by my entire competitive career and appreciated so much more.”
There have been special moments in a dancing career that encompasses nearly all of Stephanie’s entire life. One of these was when Stephanie was 17 when she was one of 16 dancers chosen from across the world to perform a Saturday night performance at the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Before going on in front of 10,000 spectators, she remembers being overwhelmed and excited to be about to perform on the largest platform any highland dancer was able to at the time. Stephanie said “When I strathespeyed across the esplanade, hearing my name announced, I was full of every emotion I had ever experienced as a dancer. All eyes were on me and I felt so proud of every accomplishment from 4 to 17.”
Since finishing her competitive career, Stephanie has moved from dancer to director. With another local dancer, Stephanie Turnbull, she has taken dancers from all across Canada to three Edinburgh Tattoos and two Basel Tattoos, under the name Canadiana Celtic. This work is now Stephanie’s passion project and she looks forward to every event Canadiana Celtic will be a part of.
For all her success as a solo competitor at the Antigonish Highland Games and at the highest levels of competitive Highland dancing, Stephanie Grant is inducted into the Antigonish Highland Games Hall of Fame.