The Institute on Disabilities at Temple College is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking collaboration with the internationally acclaimed incapacity arts ensemble Kinetic Gentle to create You Caught Me on Your Shoulders, a robust new work delving into incapacity tradition, liberation, interconnectedness, and the profound resonance of sound and silence. Made doable by a prestigious grant from The Pew Heart for Arts & Heritage, the Institute is honored to be chosen among the many Heart’s 2025 recipients.
Based in 2016 by Alice Sheppard, Kinetic Gentle is a frontrunner within the dance, incapacity arts, performing arts, and tech areas, creating immersive work that emerges from incapacity tradition and is centered in aesthetically and artistically equitable entry. The Institute on Disabilities learns from and works with Pennsylvanians with disabilities and households to create and share data, change techniques and society, and promote self-determined lives in order that incapacity is acknowledged as a pure a part of the human expertise.
By means of motion, mild, projection, sound, and vibration, You Caught Me on Your Shoulders will provide a meditation on civil disobedience, neighborhood, relationship and the US’s main actions for liberation as they join in Philadelphia. The work is predicted to premiere in 2027 on the Philadelphia Fringe Competition, introduced by FringeArts.
“So a lot of this nation’s liberation actions have had key moments in Philadelphia. I’m excited to delve into the historical past of liberation and to create tales that inform our previous anew. The Institute on Disabilities is the right associate for this work,” mentioned Alice Sheppard, Founder and Creative Director of Kinetic Gentle.
“We’re thrilled to welcome the incapacity arts ensemble Kinetic Gentle to Philadelphia for the primary time within the firm’s historical past. Kinetic Gentle combines artistry and entry in methods which can be thrilling, equitable, and totally transformative. Their presence will elevate the dialog round cultural entry in and past our area,” famous Lisa Sonneborn, the Institute’s Director of Media Arts and Tradition.
The Institute on Disabilities is Pennsylvania’s College Heart for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) – one in every of sixty-eight nationwide College Facilities for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Schooling, Analysis and Service (UCEDD) working towards a imaginative and prescient of self-determination, independence, productiveness, and neighborhood inclusion for individuals with disabilities all through the lifespan. The Institute envisions a society the place all individuals are valued and revered, and the place all individuals have the data, alternative and energy to enhance their lives and the lives of others.
Earlier in 2025, Sheppard and Laurel Lawson of Kinetic Gentle had been awarded the Knight Choreography Prize from the Nationwide Heart for Choreography-Akron. You Caught Me on Your Shoulders would be the firm’s fourth evening-length work, following DESCENT (2017), the aerial work Wired (2022) and the futurist disabled universe The Subsequent TiMes (2025). Kinetic Gentle’s repertory additionally consists of territory (2025), a disability-centered, accessible digital actuality venture.
Entry is central and generative in all Kinetic Gentle tasks and practices. With You Caught Me on Your Shoulders, Kinetic Gentle will deepen its core perception that entry is artwork, with expanded work in multitrack audio description through the corporate’s Audimance app, novel haptic (vibrational) expertise created particularly for this work, creative music and sound captions delivered through CART, and viewers entry practices together with sensory kits, quiet house, open entry, and extra.
Go to kineticlight.org to be taught extra.
