Kjersti K Engebrigtsen is currently active as a choreographer, teacher and lecturer. She made her debut as a dancer and choreographer in 1969 and has created more than 20 dance works in theatres, dance stages and in Norwegian Broadcasting Company. Her teaching experience is broad and varied. In addition she is an initiator in the Norwegian dance field, establishing the first independent dance company Høvik Ballett Company in Norway in 1968 and the first alternative dance center, Danseloftet in 1976. She also started “The Year of Dance 93” in Norway in 1993, an important event which helped to develop the Norwegian dance field.
Her work with the visually impaired started in 1987 when a blind student attended her dance classes. She decided to concentrate her efforts on blind children in order to prevent the stiffness, tension and pain, which she observed among the blind adults during her teaching.
She eventually entered the Institute of Special Needs Education at the University of Oslo where she passed her Master's degree in 1999 based on a one year dance course for blind children. Her intention being to create a dance method for blind children as part of the Special Needs Education at School.
The title of the thesis was "Can dance help to liberate the body and develop the initiative of blind children?" Later, when one of her blind students asked her «What movements do you do on stage?» she answered her by suggesting she took part in a dance performance herself.
This took place in 2004 and proved an interesting and positive experience for the visually impaired performer, the professional dancers, Kjersti K Engebrigtsen and the audience. Inspired by this experiment she felt a need to share it with others and in 2006 she started shaping the EU project FRAGILE. Her travels across Europe in search for partners resulted in a collaboration with Portugal and Estonia. The project took place from September 2011 until May 2013 and was organized by Bærum Kulturhus. In 2013 Kjersti K. Engebrigtsen received the dance critics award for «Touched», one of three dance performances presented within the FRAGILE project. She is presently working with a similar project in Rumania.
In 2017 she is celebrating her «50 years of dance» at the House of Dance in Oslo and at Bærum House of Culture presenting a revival of her « Voyage» from 1989.
