Community Engagement Practice
Kimberly's Community Engagement Practices have been shared with a diverse variety of communities worldwide.
Community Engagement has been at the forefront of my creative approach since 2018 when I developed my initial workshop for I hunger for you. This workshop, geared towards non-dancers, and welcoming to a wide population, offered a communal space for reflection and deep physical connection. The practice involves physical and imagistic exercises that open the body to sensory experience, encouraging an encounter with and connection to one’s body, history, memories, each other, the palpability of time passing, and the immediacy of being alive.
I hosted these workshops well beyond our tours due to their impact. I discovered that people-regardless of their backgrounds, ages, belief systems and abilities-were hungry to reflect on themes of faith, violence, life force, and compassion, and to feel a sense of community.
Since then, all of my works involve Community Engagement Workshops that offer participants insight into our process while building community from the inside.
The Encounter (2022-24) projects and workshops have been being offered in host communities and will continue to expand to partner locations across the United States and internationally.
As well, alongside my collaborator, Burr Johnson, we have developed a Community Engagement Workshop for bLUr (2025) which focuses on themes within the work, including trust, resistance, resilience, fall, recovery, and intervention.
All of our practices are responsive to who is in the room. Any age, race, gender, or ability are welcome.
For more information on hosting a workshop in your community, please reach out to us.
“I felt changed after the workshop. All of my worries and cares left my body and this inexplicable confidence and sense of euphoria conquered my soul. It left me defenseless against my ambitions and dreams. I felt like I unlocked a new ability, but I don’t know what that is yet.
It was an absolutely incredible and absolutely unbelievable out-of-body experience.”
Aidan, The Encounter Workshop Participant, October 2022, FIAF's Le Skyroom
Community Engagement Fund supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance project, with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The creation of the bLUr Community Engagement Workshop, made possible through National Dance Project with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and The Mellon Foundation, was also developed with support from the 92Y Harkness Dance Center and in collaboration with Recanti-Caplan teen scholars. Photos from Marble House Residency and LUMBERYARD by Alon Koppel. Photos and video at The Encounter Teen Workshop courtesy French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).