Kerry Kincy, CNTR
Meet Kerry Kincy, an artist and visionary leader whose work is rooted in the transformative power of the arts. She is the driving force behind CNTR, an arts/culture/wellness center in Middletown, Connecticut. She orchestrates and shapes an inclusive center that uplifts, empowers, and provides access to invisible populations not traditionally served by arts organizations. Her work in movement as therapy takes her into schools, colleges, and corporations. She leads residencies with Veterans with PTSD and individuals with Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases. She’s not just about making art; she’s about transforming lives with that art.
Kerry is a core faculty member of New Haven Ballet’s Shared Abilities Program, which brings together dancers with and without physical disabilities to create inspiring performances. Her work began over a decade ago, collaborating with organizations and leading arts residencies to bring active art experiences to diverse populations. At CNTR, she recently championed a community art project, Debris Couture, a Sustainable Trashion Project, where the community was invited to create ready-to-wear fashion from recycled materials that would have otherwise gone into our waste stream.
Kerry was chosen as a Community Fellow In Wesleyan University’s “Embodying Anti-Racism Initiative”. Her commitment to sharing her passion with emerging artists to use the arts to address systemic inequality and build deeper connections within communities earned her recognition as a Connecticut Arts Hero in 2021. It’s no wonder she was given this honor. Whether sparking connections through CNTR or breaking boundaries in the arts world, Kerry is all about actively moving people to their creativity to make the world a better, more connected place.
Kerry, who is impacted by the work that you do, and what is your personal connection to this work?
“Ah, to be seen! My hope is that the impact I'm making is on the entire community, but most importantly, on folks who have felt invisible. Witnessing is reciprocal and an exchange. Holding space for where someone is in a particular moment is important and needed more. Take the time to simply notice when you feel joy. Where do you feel in your mind and your body? Where do you hold it? What do you do with that? Being able to slow down enough to notice it and help inform and change perspectives. I am most impacted by the people I work with, using the tools I provide to understand their place in the world and how they fit into it.
Much of my experience navigating the landscape in a career up until 2020 has felt very competitive and siloed. In 2020, my connection to the work was amplified. When I was invited to direct the Free Center, it was an extension of the work I was already doing and connected nicely with my scholarly work in Community Psychology. Working with invisible populations to help provide them the tools to give voice to what is important individually and then widening the lens to larger communities has been fascinating to me.”
We acknowledged how we’ve become disconnected from the art of simply being.
"Yeah, I think like anything, it's practice. Personally, I lean into moving as meditation. I think folks sometimes are intimidated by sitting still, right? I was, at first. It’s good to do, for sure. For me, it's more about the connections between quieting yourself enough to notice and understand the mind-body connections. My work in movement has proven that experiences live in your bones and your cells, right? Good, bad, and everything in between. COVID-19 left us all with a paucity of that sense of connection to ourselves and others. As scared as I was to have just signed a lease on a space for gathering, I continued to build it and continued to be open to the healing that connection brings and create a space where communities like me could come as they are, to just be. There were yoga classes at first, and I mean, I went and just laid on the floor. I wasn't doing anything. I just went to be around people.
For me, the most important thing is allowing folks to feel a sense of home, welcome, to feel included. If I were here in this large space by myself, it wouldn't mean anything. This is my work, and intentionally community-led and community-driven. Everyone's individual contribution is what contributes to the whole of whatever we're making, whether it's a movement class or a cultural event or an arts exhibition."
As women, in particular, we invest so much in everybody else that we don't always think about how we care for ourselves. Do you have a self-care routine that helps you maintain balance?
"I think without taking time to notice where the imbalances are, you end up just running in circles, on autopilot. My self-care routine... mmm let’s see, I love to take good hot baths. I also get up early in the morning, find the sun, and offer up at least three things for which I'm grateful. You can always find more once you start, but I begin with three. I walk the property with my dog, Betty and cat, Rita Mae. I look at my chickens and listen for the birds’ calls. I like the quiet of a new day starting with a hot cup of coffee- taking it all in.
I also make time to travel because experiences are better than any gift I have ever been given. Even if it's just for a few days, change it up and experience a different place. Some of my most memorable places are countries that have less of the abundance we have here. I see and really appreciate how the community comes together to love upon and support each other. It really translates to a particular kind of richness. A special woman in my life said to me one day, sitting under the mango tree in Lacovia in the West Indies, “Poor is not a crime; it's a disgrace.” That statement continues to resonate deeply with me.
I find self-care in recognizing and nurturing the relationships that envelop me personally. It is the best medicine, and it’s free. I always say that to have a good friend, you have to be a good friend, and I’m blessed to have amazing friends, so that's nourishing. And good eye cream (laughs).”
Looking back, has there been a particular challenge in your life that was pivotal in your growth journey?
"For almost 20 years, movement therapy wasn't popular, so I had to translate it into a language people understood. Today it seems it’s become trendy in many ways and leaves room for inauthenticity. I have sifted through what I adhere to and really define how I put a value on my residencies and practice. That confidence around my value has taken years to develop — overcoming the ability to say no thank you to invitations to collaborate.
Caring for my mother at the end of 2019 was an honor, and her transition was beautifully bittersweet. Three days after her funeral, finding my partner had hanged himself was almost too much for me. I am so grateful to my daughters, close friends, and family. The experience has shown me that there are many gifts to be found in tragedies – we just have to be still long enough to notice them. Time has an entire new meaning for me. My boundaries are different, my sense of self in the world, and my whole existence is different. The experience has been an exercise in being unapologetic about my needs and learning to say 'No, thank you' with a period at the end. I intentionally keep in bright light and joyful environments now.
The experience has informed all my work—in the arts, in community, and in hospice care, which I never imagined would be part of my life. It is indeed in giving that we receive. That solidified my truth about what's important in a lifetime. We are born, and we die—there's that dash in between, and the dash became more real to me.
My mother's transition was beautiful and peaceful, something we shared with my children. The contrast three days later was destabilizing. I had studied trauma and what it does physiologically, and that's when my interest in movement grew. I studied how it impacted the brain and body and what happens. That vagus nerve is incredible Ha! However, all of my scholarly work didn't change what was happening to me in my body. I was grateful for my studies, but they didn't change the process. I just understood, 'this is what's happening now. With as much grace as I can, I continue to move through all of it.
These experiences changed my entire life immensely and my commitment to live more intentionally. Holding that line has gotten easier and struggles of course come up but they also give me an opportunity to continue to practice more. As women we need to be reminded that we are our best investment.”
We honored the courage required to immerse oneself in hospice work while still navigating grief.
"I always say it, the only way out is through."
Community and mentorship are so important. Is there a particular person or persons that you’ve drawn inspiration from over the years?
"There are a lot of people that have shaped me to get where I am today. I think first and foremost are my parents, who were active in the community and who gave me my first introduction to community work. My mother was a nurse and worked at CAGM, an organization in Middletown, in the late '60s and early '70s. I was always surrounded by friends of my parents and people working in the community—for our community.
There's a woman, Janis Astor del Valle, who was the Executive Director of a Community Arts Center on Green Street. She gave me not only encouragement but also work—the opportunity to share the work that I love to do—and she believed in me.
Another gentleman, Brad Roth, introduced me to the Shared Ability program, where I could use my movement and dance to work with children and young adults with intellectual, cognitive, and physical disabilities. I'm forever grateful to them both—they believed in me and encouraged me when I didn't believe in myself. More importantly, they gave me a chance.
Outside of my parents and the circle of friends I was around and enveloped in, Janis and Brad gave me the tools to believe in myself. Even though I don't see them often, I make sure that they know that to this day, when I feel self-doubt or defeat in my work, I think of them.”
What advice would you offer the woman with a whisper in her heart to lean deeper into her power?
"I think first and foremost my best advice is to listen to all of those inner voices, to write down — kind of a brain dump — doesn't even have to make sense on the paper, without judgment, put it down. Save that paper, look back over it in time, and make some time to sort it. It’s been helpful to come back to it and see what things have taken different shapes or not. How have you moved through it or not, and what patterns come up? What’s your growing edge?
I think leaning into your inner wisdom can propel you into a whole new universe. I think it's about practice, like anything. You're building trust within.The more you lean into it, the more you see how it works, and you learn to trust it and use it, unapologetically.
It's in looking back that we can understand what contributions by our own design, demonstrate challenges and successes in overcoming them. It's in looking back that we’re able to appreciate the path. And keep up the practice. Self-care is being equally comfortable with our mistakes and poor choices as we are with the celebrations. And build yourself a community, a good support system that surrounds you. It could be just a handful or even just one really solid friend. People need people.”
