Circle O

Circle O K. Hamilton Projects creates and produces collaborative performance work and engages communities through innovative curriculum, dialogue and movement.

Our Artistic Director & Founder Kayla Hamilton recently facilitated a Mixed Ability workshop   Thank you for having us!!...
05/27/2026

Our Artistic Director & Founder Kayla Hamilton recently facilitated a Mixed Ability workshop

Thank you for having us!!

Repost from

Mixed Abled Workshop

Herzlichen Dank an das Pina Bausch Zentrum under construction und Kayla Hamilton für diesen inspirierenden Workshop. Wir tanzen gerne mit euch, um etwas zu bewegen.
 
Heartfelt thanks to the Pina Bausch Center under construction and Kayla Hamilton for this inspiring workshop. We love dancing with you to make a difference.

Fotos: .de

[Image Description 1: a photo of Kayla, who is a Black woman wearing a bright blue blouse & light orange pants, in motion teaching a class with Disabled dancers.]

[Image Description 2: a photo of all the artists in a big circle inside a dance studio.]

[Image Description 3: a group photo of Disabled dancers exploring movement together. They have their arms floating above them]

[Image Description 4: another group of Disabled dancers moving together with different mobility devices.]

05/12/2026

Welcome to ✨Talking Tuesdays✨
This is where I practice what I invite others into, which is a practice of vulnerability, and moving towards discomfort or being inside of it.

For today, we are thinking about who gets centered in spaces that we create. And we are curious what will happen if we make those decisions consciously.

Let us know below what would happen if we consciously and explicitly named who is being centered in the spaces we create?

Tuesday

[Video Description: a clip of Kayla, who is a dark-skinned Black woman with their locs down. They have red cat-eyed glasses and are wearing a black wrap around the neck headset and a blue sweater. Behind them is a white wall.]

Transcript located in the comments.

Join us tomorrow at Movement Research  for 📚 Studies Project: When Disabled Embodiment Is the Center: An Open Discussion...
05/11/2026

Join us tomorrow at Movement Research for 📚 Studies Project: When Disabled Embodiment Is the Center: An Open Discussion on Pedagogy, Access, and the Body as Knowledge with Kayla Hamilton

Learn more and RSVP by visiting our website: https://movementresearch.org/events/1433/ or click on the

When: Tue, May 12, 2026 | 6:30-8pm
Location: MR Studios, 122CC (150 First Avenue)
Price: Donation-based ($5 suggested) | Spaces are limited and RSVP Required!

Organized by Kayla Hamilton with participants Vanessa Hernandez Cruz, Anaís Gómez, and Parker Ramirez.

**Please note: Masking will be required for this event. Masks will be available at the door.**

About the event:
What happens when disabled embodiment isn’t pushed to the edges, but becomes the starting point? This open discussion invites artists, educators, and practitioners to come together and talk about disabled ways of moving, sensing, adapting, and knowing as powerful ways of teaching and learning.

Instead of treating access as something extra, we’ll explore how disabled embodiment can shape how spaces, practices, and classrooms are designed in the first place. This is a space for sharing experiences and reflecting together on what changes when we lead from lived experience rather than fixed rules or assumptions.

About the artist:
Access. Movement. Play. (A.M.P.) Residency Director
Kayla Hamilton is a Leo Sun with Aquarius Rising and Moon, which means she’s always speaking in draft, dreaming big, and sometimes confusing people mid-sentence. A Bronx-based choreographer, educator, and Bessie Award-winning artist, Kayla loves the WNBA (NY Liberty + Indiana Fever fan), protein coffee, and self-help TikTok’s. She grew up in Texarkana, TX, the oldest child and only daughter in a CME church family, and spent 12 years as a NYC public school special ed teacher before striking out to build her own path.

Image Description in comments

Join us on Saturday!!How Do We Move in Public?Saturday, May 9, 2026, 4:00-7:00 PM at The Hub, Bronx, NYRSVP requested (l...
05/07/2026

Join us on Saturday!!

How Do We Move in Public?
Saturday, May 9, 2026, 4:00-7:00 PM at The Hub, Bronx, NY
RSVP requested (link in SPCUNY’s bio)

Announcing the second program in the 2026 series How Do We ___________ in Public?: a cycle of four free experimental events responding to contemporary crises shaping the cultural field, including the defunding and targeting of public institutions and the erosion of shared civic space. This second program in the series is partnered with BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance during the Boogie Down Dance Series.

Organized by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, this event brings together dancers/choreographers with connections to the Bronx to generate movement-based actions in public spaces in the South Bronx: Argelia Arreola (with support from Pepatián: Bronx Arts ColLABorative), Ana ‘Rokafella’ García, Paloma McGregor/Angela’s Pulse, and Alethea Pace. Responding to escalating surveillance, policing, and state violence, particularly the terrorization of Black and Brown communities under ongoing ICE raids, the program advances movement as a counter-response to neglect, with care, and shared imagination, asking how bodies navigate, reshape, and reclaim urban space under conditions of threat.
This program will activate several points along 3rd Avenue and 149th Street, a major cultural crossroads at the heart of the South Bronx called The Hub, and is funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Eugene M. Lang Foundation.

Photo 2: Alethea Pace by Whitney Browne
Photo 3: Paloma McGregor/Angela’s Pulse, Building a Better Fishtrap (Harlem), 2015, by Whitney Browne
Photo 4: Ana “Rokafella” García, Full Circle Souljahs, 2016, by Ali Riojas
Photo 5: Argelia Arreola, ACUSTIKORP, courtesy the artist

[image Descriptions in comments]

This semester, I spent time with graduate students in Dance Education at Hunter College.Through Access as Structure and ...
04/30/2026

This semester, I spent time with graduate students in Dance Education at Hunter College.

Through Access as Structure and Moving Together, we explored what it actually means for a dance space to hold more bodies, not by adding modifications and accommodations after the fact, but by shifting the structure from the beginning.

This is the work I’m building through Circle O, and it’s continuing to grow into longer labs and more intentional learning spaces.



[Image description 1: a photo of Kayla, who is a Black woman wearing a long sleeve blue blouse and black pants. She is standing in front of a class teaching about Disability to a group of dance graduate students. Next to her is a tv screen showing a PowerPoint slide.]

[Image description 2: a photo of two group of students going through a series of Circle O prompts.]

[Image description 3: a photo of different materials that were used during the workshop that includes: fidget toys, post it notes, handouts, markers, and blank sheets of paper.]

[Image description 4: a photo of Kayla, who is a Black woman wearing a long sleeve purple blouse and jeans with her short locs pulled back and hoop earrings. She is sitting in a circle with the dance graduate students as she is lecturing. There is a whiteboard beside her with various statements and prompts.]

04/29/2026

Welcome to ✨Talking Tuesdays✨ This is where I practice what I invite others into, which is a practice of vulnerability, and moving towards discomfort or being inside of it.

For Today,
We are thinking about how slowing down and being with the moment changes our bodies, changes our relationship to each other, which then changes the space.

Let us know below what changes for you, whether thoughts, feelings, sensations for you when you allow yourself to slow down and stay with the moment?

Tuesday

[Video Description: a clip of Kayla, who is a dark-skinned Black woman with their locs down. They have translucent glasses and golden hoops, a black T-shirt, and is sitting on a chair in front of a white wall.]

Transcript located in the comments.

04/17/2026

Welcome to a special edition of ✨Talking Tuesdays✨ where we post on a Thursday! This is where I practice what I invite others into, which is a practice of vulnerability, and moving towards discomfort or being inside of it.

For Today,

We are thinking about what it means to have access practice in the beginnings of our process and how that transforms our work.

Let us know below in your current practice, how would including/embedding/integrating/considering access practices in the beginnings of your work can shift what your work becomes?



[Video Description: a clip of Kayla, who is a dark-skinned Black woman with locs that are in a ponytail on her right side. She has cat-eye red framed glasses and silver hoops, a black T-shirt, and is sitting on a wooden chair outside on a porch. Behind her is a yellow house and a window with black trim.]

Transcript located in the comments.

04/07/2026

Welcome to ✨Talking Tuesdays✨ where I practice what I invite others into, which is a practice of vulnerability and moving towards discomfort or being inside of it.

For Today,

We are expanding what the definition of professionalism is.

Let us know below what would shift for you if you expanded the definition of professionalism that you learned or that you know today?



[Video Description: a clip of Kayla, who is a Black woman wearing thick red cat eyeglasses, large gold hoop earrings, a sea green T-shirt. Behind them are tan walls with a piece of artwork in a brown picture frame.]

Transcript:
Hey y’all, this is Kayla. I am a Black person with chin length locks. I’m wearing thick red cat eyeglasses, large gold hoop earrings, a sea green T-shirt. Behind me are tan walls with a piece of artwork in a brown picture frame. Welcome to Talking Tuesdays, where I practice what I invite others into, which is a practice of vulnerability and moving towards discomfort or being inside of it.
For me, practicing using my voice in public space does that for me. The reason why it does that for me is... not the reason, but one of the reasons why I have not practiced this is because of what I’ve learned of what professionalism was. I was taught that professionalism meant that I was clear all the time, that I was polished and contained and somewhat detached and I’ve began to expand that definition for myself and in my work.
For me, it’s about presence, about how I’m choosing to relate, about how I’m accountable to the room and not the outcome. And it doesn’t always look neat. It can look like me taking pauses or not having an immediate response to what someone shares in the room.
Yeah, so I’m curious for you, please let me know in the chat or if you have my number, text me or send me a voice memo. What would shift for you if you expanded the definition of professionalism that you learned or that you know today?

03/31/2026

Welcome to ✨Talking Tuesdays✨!

For today…

What if we don’t wait until it’s finished or “complete”?
What if we speak from where we’re at?

This is me trying that.
Unpolished.
Uncertain.
And still—here.

Join me on Tuesdays, where I’ll share ideas, thoughts, and curiosities about dance, access, pedagogy, and ways of being—in draft form.



Transcript:
Kayla:
Hey, y’all, this is Kayla, Founder and Artistic Director of Circle O. I am a Black person with chin-length locks. I am wearing red framed glasses, two layered, leaf-shaped earrings. One layer is gold, the second layer is black and white striped. And I’m wearing a brown shirt and a black cardigan, and behind me is a bookshelf with magenta LED trim.
I’ve just been thinking a lot about the things that I’ve asked of others in my dance and movement classes, which are vulnerability, moving towards discomfort or being in discomfort, and being present and showing up whatever fully means for the person inside of those two feelings. And I’ve been thinking about ways in which I practice those things outside of the class setting, and for me, being on camera and being in public does that for me, is that practice.
So I’m starting a series called Talking Tuesdays, which is my practice of moving towards vulnerability, moving towards discomfort or maybe being inside discomfort, and trying to show up as fully or be as present as I can inside of those things. So join me on Tuesdays for Talking Tuesdays. I’ll see you then.

[Video Description: a clip of Kayla, who is a Black woman wearing red framed glasses, two layered, leaf-shaped earrings. She is wearing a brown shirt and a black cardigan, and behind her is a bookshelf with magenta LED trim.]

From our Artistic Director & Founder Kayla Hamilton: My dad, Gene Hamilton, made his physical transition on February 14,...
02/17/2026

From our Artistic Director & Founder Kayla Hamilton:

My dad, Gene Hamilton, made his physical transition on February 14, 2026.

He was the last person I spoke to before I boarded my flight to Nigeria on Thursday, February 12. In our final conversation, he told me how proud he was of me, how brave he thought I was and how much he loved watching my life unfold. I feel deeply grounded knowing those were some of the last words we shared.

My father shaped me in quiet, lasting ways. When I was growing up, he would call me into the room to watch Serena and Venus Williams, Dominique Dawes, Surya Bonaly, and other Black women doing what they do. He wanted me to see “excellence” that looked like me. He wanted me to know what was possible. That stayed with me as a Black girl being raised in a small Texas town during that time It taught me to dream boldly, to take up space, and to believe I belonged in the world. I watched him grow from sometimes being unsure what to make of my bold spirit to admiring it fully, and we would smile and say, “This is what you helped create.”

He loved the farm. He could sit for hours just watching the land, being still with it. He loved music. And he was one of the hardest working men I have ever known.

I am now back from Nigeria and headed home to be with my family as we make arrangements.

This is me practicing what I often speak about — learning to ask for what you/I need. If you would like to support us, prayers, meditations and etc for the Hamilton family mean so much right now. Other support is also appreciated — Venmo (-Hamilton-M), or gift cards for DoorDash, Uber Eats, or Grubhub are especially helpful during this time. I’m learning just how hard it can be to care for yourself while grieving.

You can also send a text, DM, or email to check in without any expectation of a response. It would mean a lot just to know you are thinking of me and my family.

Thank you for holding us with what you have the capacity for.

And if you are a parent to anyone — or anything you love — tell and remind them you are proud of them. Those words can become the fuel that carries them forward long after you’re gone.

Image description: A smiling older Black man wearing a cap, plaid shirt, and vest stands beside a large bull inside a fenced farm pen. He rests his hand gently on the animal while trees and sunlight fill the background, capturing a peaceful moment on the land he loved.

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Texarkana, TX
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