Eventually, Kimura followed in the footsteps of Kanda Akiko, and applied for and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study with the Martha Graham Dance Company in the United States.
[15] Though she danced with a variety of companies during her early years in the US including -- Kazuo Hirabayashi, Mary Anthony, Donald McKayle, Sophie Maslow, and Lar Lubovitch, and sometimes in performances specifically featuring Japanese dancers[19]—by 1968 Kimura joined the Martha Graham Dance Company and quickly became a principal dancer.
[18] Some of her major works with the Martha Graham Company included Appalachian Spring, Embattled Garden, Errand into the Maze, Diversion of Angles, and Clytemnestra.
[7][26][28] In the late 1990s, Kimura was performing as a lead dancer with the New National Theater Contemporary Dance troupe.
[29] She pursued and received a Ph.D.[30][31] She became a professor at Tenri University, in Nara, Japan, on the Faculty of Physical Education.