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These unique classes bring the power of dance and artistic expression to people with Parkinson's Disease - a population who has been deeply betrayed by their bodies - and enable them to find new ways to connect and move.
10-Class Card $60 / 5-Class Card $40 / $10 drop-in
Scholarships available
Art as Action Artistic Director Sarah Leversee (who teaches the class alongside counselor Jan Leversee) is a Stanley J. Wertheimer Fellow for the Dance for PD® program, which provides in-depth training and mentorship opportunities to exceptionally qualified teachers offering high quality dance classes modeled after the Dance for PD program.
“Even when I feel like I just can’t do it, I go to class. I always feel so much better by the end of class—and for days afterward. My whole body benefits from the movement, so I’m not nearly as stiff and sore. And my spirit benefits from learning to move more gracefully and artfully. I never even imagined myself dancing; now I look forward to it every week!” - Wayne A. Gilbert, Dancer with PD
About Dance for PD®Dance for PD® offers dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease in Brooklyn, NY and, through a network of partners and associates, in more than 40 other communities around the world. An on-going collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group—a chapter of the National Parkinson Foundation—the Dance for PD® program also provides teacher training and nurtures relationships among other organizations so that classes based on the model are widely available.
The Dance for PD® method has been presented at the International Congress for Parkinson’s Disease and Related Disorders in Berlin (2005), the World Parkinson Congress in Washington, D.C. (2006) and at Neuroscience 2008. The program was featured as a model program at the Society for the Arts in Healthcare’s annual conference (2010). The World Parkinson Congress in Glasgow featured a workshop on “Dance and Parkinson’s Disease” and demonstration classes (September, 2010), and a demo class was included at this year's Parkinson's Unity Walk in Central Park. Features about the program have appeared on PBS NewsHour, NPR, CBS, ABC, and Reuters, and in The New York Times and USA Today, among others.
WATCH "Why Dance for Parkinson’s Disease?" a film by the Brooklyn Parkinson Group/Mark Morris Dance Group
WATCH "Dance Helps Parkinson's Patients Harness Therapeutic Power of Movement" from PBS
“Although participants from all over the world tell us they find elements of the class therapeutic, the primary goal of our program is for people to enjoy dance for dancing’s sake in a group setting—and to explore the range of physical and creative possibilities that are still very much open to them.”
- David Leventhal, founding Dance for PD® teacher
In collaboration with Parkinson Association of the Rockies
