Bio

Name: Kimberly Joy Morgan Eyes: Brown Hair: Brown Dred Locs Height:5.4
Weight: 125

For those of us determined to respect the arts by avoiding the lack luster, flavor of the month characters found in the entertainment industry, Kimberly Joy Morgan provides a healthy shot of spirit-filled reality. With golden tipped locs, a brilliantly creative mind, flawless figure, and a scrupulously positive attitude, Kimberly is pushing the boundaries of the entertainment jungle with grace and her own “crazy sense of rhythm and style”. She’s a dancer, actor, choreographer, teacher, writer, director, aerobic instructor and business woman. No wonder she started her own company as a professional organizer and life coach. Kimberly is a movement specialist; whether it’s bodies or business, she consistently represents her company’s claim of Orderbydesign2. When you talk to her, you find out the inspiration behind her sense of order.

“I am a child of God first. A woman second. And a black woman third. The first defines whose I am and why I am here—to love and serve. The second is what I have been created to do—give birth to life, ideas and love. The third entitles me to the ‘rights’ of an amazing history of strength and perseverance and not to mention a cultural legacy grounded in community, oral history, and a crazy sense of rhythm and style.”

Kimberly began “stage life” dancing at Ronnie’s Dance Studio in North Haven, Connecticut, at the precarious age of four, when most of us were fine-tuning our temper tantrums. From there she was trained formally in ballet, tap, and jazz through her pre-teens. But high school is when true love set in. Not that exploratory fanaticism that made many of us self-conscious and starry-eyed as we ogled one another, spittin our game in the halls. Kimberly was busy marrying the slick, gold-toothed grin of hip-hop with the heavy disciplined gymnastics of cheerleading. By the time she left for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she was touring with Opeyo, a modern dance company. She’s danced with Zeal, the Coca-Cola sponsored hip-hop company of Olympic fame, Seattle-based Adefua African Dance Company, and taught aerobics with the Femme Athletic Fitness Team. In the process, she added African, Modern, Latin and Swing to her already strenuous repertoire. But this isn’t just another black female with a penchant for the groove; Kimberly is a choreographic visionary who knows how to make ballet, tap, jazz, Latin, African and hip-hop tumble together in funked-out formation. Choreography has provided several years of teaching opportunity for Kimberly; she’s taught children and adults how to find the joy in artistic self-expression while simultaneously making positive changes in their health.

“God has given me a love and compassion for people and I want His love to shine through me…I want to make sure I attack life with zeal and creative expression, never falling into laziness.”

Creative expression and zeal must have marked Kimberly at birth. She went from playing with her 76 Barbies in the basement where she found inspiration and imagination for developing wild characters to an adult starring in her own one-woman show, “Hot Comb: Brandin’ One Mark of Oppression”. The show has eight vignettes with female characters ranging from six to ninety six years old and chronicles a variety of experiences of highly politicized Black hair choices. Kimberly’s range is not only displayed in her ability to effortlessly and gracefully transition from character to character, but also in the incorporation of spoken word, music, and dance in a highly energetic 90 minute performance. Kimberly’s “Hot Comb” has moved audiences in three cities, been performed before standing room only crowds, and invited audiences to a voyeuristic education of how hair—knotty, locked, extended, processed or straightened—reflects the history and struggles of Black women’s self-image and upward mobility. Clearly Kimberly’s used to moving other people. But what moves her?

“I want to be able to reach the WORLD for Christ, especially teenagers, through cultural programs grounded in the arts. And I know that the performing arts have such a profound impact on human emotion and thought. What better way to reach the WORLD than with material that matters?”

Influenced by heavy hitting writers like August Wilson, Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and bell hooks and actors Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad, Angela Bassett, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Julia Roberts it’s easy to see from whence the blending of Kimberly’s earthly interests and high calling emerge. Her goals may include castings in feature films, national commercials and with great theatre companies—maybe even an Oscar or Tony Award—but her vision is to open a school for underprivileged youth to study with highly acclaimed artists.

“God gives us all gifts and talents and it is our job to discover and hone them…Once I realized it was my calling, I knew that God would bless me with opportunities to help others see His goodness through performing arts. I want people to feel that life is…or can be…grand…that we are created to experience emotions and feelings and we should use them to enact positive change in our lives.”

Undeniably, Kimberly keeps it positive. With plenty of film and television, commercial/industrial/trade, and theatre experience to her credit, from voice-overs to starring roles, Kimberly has balance, creativity and the heart of a lioness, bound to succeed and desperately needed in the entertainment jungle.