ROCKLAND — A live physical theater performance work created by choreographer/director Kimberly Bartosik, in partnership with the Strand Theatre, will be presented on the Strand stage on Friday, Aug. 4 and Saturday, Aug. 5 at 7 p.m. The Encounter: Rockland features 12 local performers.

As part of the Strand’s New Century Series, tickets are offered on a Pay-What-You-Can scale of $0-20.

The Encounter: Rockland is part of Bartosik’s expansive, long-term Encounter project. The New York City-based artist works with communities around the world merging professional, pre-professional, and non-professional performers. Since 2021, she has been creating unique Encounter projects, creating an intergenerational cross-geographic, global conversation about the ferocious power of the body as a form of communication.

“The work is an encounter with oneself, pulling from what we are currently carrying in our bodies – grief, hope, fear, desire, newfound power – and pairs it with our dreams in this moment of reconciliation with time,” said  Bartosik.”

Bartosik is building a unique, locally cast Encounter project with the Rockland community for these performances. The August 5 performance will be followed by a reception, open to the public.

Other recent Encounter projects include: The Encounter: Buffalo, created in partnership with Torn Space Theater; The Encounter: Italia, supported by the Italian Ministry of Culture; and The Encounter in NYC, which had its World Premiere as part of French Institute/Alliance Francaise Crossing the Line Festival, with performances in FIAF’s Le Skyroom. Creative Producer for The Encounter is Carlos Diaz Stoop.

For more on Encounter performances, visit https://www.daela.org/the-encounter

About the Artist:

Kimberly Bartosik is a NYC-based choreographer, performer, educator, essayist who creates viscerally provocative, ferociously intimate choreographic projects that dramatically illuminate the ephemeral nature of performance while critically, tenderly, and violently etching away at deeply distressing threads of our society.

Bartosik is a 2020 Bessie Award Honoree for Outstanding Performance & Outstanding Performer (Burr Johnson) for her work, through the mirror of their eyes (New York Live Arts). She is a 2023 Ragdale Fellowship Residency Artist; a 2021 recipient of a Doris Duke Foundation Performing Artist Recovery Fund in the New York Community Trust; a 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography; and a 2020 Virginia B. Toulmin Women Leaders in Dance Fellowship at Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU. 

Bartosik’s work has been commissioned and presented by BAM Next Wave Festival, New York Live Arts, LUMBERYARD, The Chocolate Factory Theater (2025), American Realness, FIAF’s Crossing the Line Festival, Abrons Art Center, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, La Mama, and others. She has toured to Supersense: Festival of the Ecstatic (Melbourne, Australia), Bratislava in Movement, WexnerArts Center, Dance Place, American Dance Festival, The Yard, MASS MoCA/Jacob’s Pillow, FlynnSpace, Bates Dance Festival, Columbia College, and others.

Select awards include National Dance Project (NDP) Production & Touring Grant and Community Engagement Fund; MAP Fund; Jerome Foundation; FUSED (French-US Exchange in Dance); Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, USArtists International; Creative Arts Initiative (CAI); New Music USA, Live Music for Dance; and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Grants to Artists and Emergency Grants.

The presentation is sponsored by Rockland Harbor Hotel, with funding support from the Maine Arts Commission and from the New England States Touring program of the New England Foundation for the Arts, made possible with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program and the six New England state arts agencies.

Running time for the performances is 45 minutes. Tickets are Pay-What You-Can, $0-20 (suggested $20) and are available at  www.rocklandstrand.com, by calling 207-594-0070, or at the door.

The Strand Theatre is located at 345 Main Street, Rockland.