Muriel Mary Stuart Popper was born in 1900,^[1] in South Norwood, London.^[2][3] She was discovered by Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova as a girl, and trained with Pavlova,^[4] and with Ivan Clustine and Enrico Cecchetti. Later she studied modern dance with Martha Graham, Harald Kreutzberg, and Agnes de Mille.^[5] "Every new phase of the art is interesting to me," she explained to a newspaper interviewer in 1931.^[6]

Stuart was a featured dancer with Pavlova's company^[7][8] on world tours from 1916 to 1926.^[9][10] She moved to Los Angeles in 1927, and opened a ballet school in Hollywood.^[11][12][13] One of her Los Angeles students, Joan Bayley, recalled that "Muriel Stewart was so inspiring! She had this long neck and gorgeous epaulement."^[14]

Stuart danced and did choreography with the Chicago Civic Opera Ballet in the 1928-1929 season. She taught for many years at the School of American Ballet in New York, beginning in 1935.^[5][15] Among the noted dancers who studied with Stuart were Myra Kinch, Todd Bolender, Laura Dean,^[16] Michael Kidd,^[17] Jacques d'Amboise,^[18] and Alicia Alonso.^[19]

Stuart co-wrote a textbook with Lincoln Kirstein, The Classic Ballet: Basic Technique and Terminology (1952), with an introduction by George Balanchine.^[20][21] In 1987, she was the first winner of the Mae L. Wien Faculty Award for Distinguished Service at the School of American Ballet.^[22]

Stuart married and divorced twice. Her first husband was a violinist, Julian Brodetsky.^[23] Her second husband was a playwright, James Warwick.^[24] She had a son, Peter Warwick. She died in 1991, in New York City, aged 90 years.^[5] Her papers, including lesson plans and photographs, are in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library.^[25] The New York Public Library also has an oral history interview with Stuart, given in 1978.^[26]