Terry is committed to making her offerings accessible to people who are interested, regardless of their financial situation. She offers scholarships for all of her services. Please email terry@terryhempfling.com to inquire and receive a discount code dependent on your needs.

Terry Rosa Hempfling is the child of activists Judith Hempfling and Gabe Gabrielsky, grandchild of farmers Herbert and Mary Hempfling (Ohio), postal worker Irving Gabrielsky and clerk Elizabeth Gabrielsky (New Jersey). She is the great-grandchild of western and eastern European immigrants. Terry was born in New York City in the early 1980s and grew up in a working-class environment, moving around the Northeastern and Midwestern regions of the so-called United States throughout her childhood.

Terry began creating choreography when she was 6 and started her technical dance training in ballet after receiving a scholarship to Amherst Ballet Center in Massachusetts when she was 12. When she moved to Ohio at the age of 14, she found Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, which offered scholarships to students who auditioned into their Youth Ensemble. Here she learned Graham and Horton techniques, jazz and contemporary dance, in the African-American tradition of the company.

In college, Terry met Kathleen Hermesdorf, who became a giant influence on her movement practice, introducing her to Contact Improvisation, Release Technique, Qi Gong, and going upside down. Terry continued studying with Hermesdorf for the next 20 years, until her passing in 2020. During her 20s, Terry attended Circus Center in San Francisco to study aerial acrobatics. Other major teachers and influences on Terry’s work include Janet Panetta, Tere O’Connor, Irene Dowd, Jill Becker, Louise Smith, Luis Mojica, Linda Winnick, Elizabeth Streb, Pina Bausch, the earth, water, air, trees, and stars.

At the age of 30, Terry experienced serious hip bursitis due to habitual movement patterning and was unable to walk for a number of months. This experience sparked her interest in healing physical trauma through movement. She has effectively gained greater strength, flexibility and mobility in her body in the last 14 years since this injury.

During the summer COVID lockdown of 2020, Terry was living in Minneapolis and involved in the uprising which occurred there after George Floyd’s murder by the Minneapolis Police Department. While protesting, Terry and others were kettled and violently attacked by the police while trying to follow the police orders to leave a protest location. She had just learned her father was dying of cancer, and her mental health struggles were feeling unmanageable. She began doing embodied nervous-system work to unearth the trauma stored in her physical body and relate to her emotional body in a new way. Through this work, Terry has learned that every body has an enormous capacity for healing when we learn how to relate and listen to it.

As an artist, Terry’s work spans dance, improvisation, site-specific performance, visual art, video, and social practice, with a particular interest in ephemeral performance, embodied memory and the ways live experiences are transmitted, documented, archived, and transformed through analog and digital media. Terry has performed and/ or collaborated with Phoebe Berglund, Marina Abramović, Laure Prouvost, Pierre Droulers, Ada Friendman, Anthea Hamilton, and Rachel Jendrzejewski, with whom she maintained a decade-long artistic partnership before stewarding Jendrzejewski’s artistic archive following her passing in 2025. In January 2026, Hempfling founded The New Workers Dance League in Minneapolis, a public movement project developed in response to Operation Metro Surge.

As an educator, Terry has taught movement classes and workshops at the University of Minnesota and Antioch College. As an archival performance videographer she has worked with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Dia Art Foundation, New York Live Arts, Dancespace Project, Joyce Theater, and Arts Midwest.

Terry’s work and collaborations have been developed, presented, and supported through institutions and organizations including the Weisman Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Lighthouse Works, Playwrights’ Center, Shandaken Projects, West Wind Artist Residency, Red Eye Theater, PRACTICE Gallery, Dixon Place, and Keshet Dance.

In summer 2026, Terry will present a video and print work with Queer Arts at Beverley’s in New York City, a new video work at Pasture Gallery in New Hampshire, and collaborative performance work at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park’s annual festival in Tivoli, New York.

Terry has also worked as a waitress, nanny, bartender, comic book seller, dish washer, house painter, ticket taker, hostess, maid, house manager, delivery driver, dog walker, and secretary.

Terry is a music lover and she DJ’s and designs music compilations for events, parties, venues, and weddings.

Terry self-identifies as a queer, white working class, multidisciplinary artist and embodiment witch. She does not believe the mind, body, and/ or spirit are separate entities. Terry has a BA from Antioch College in Dance and Theater and is an AAAI/ ISMA Certified Personal Trainer, Group Fitness Instructor, and Pilates teacher. She is currently working towards a 200-hr yoga teaching certification at Shakti Yoga in Woodstock, NY.