To ensure the safety of our dancers and do our part for community health and well-being, Art as Action will be suspending in-person Reconnect with your Body classes until we feel it is safe to return.  In times of turbulence where anxiety and fear are impossible to escape, dance provides us with an outlet to express […]

It doesn’t take long after she begins gliding across the dance floor that Karen Talcott forgets she has Parkinson’s disease. Her physical symptoms, including stiffness, pain and tremors on the right side of her body, quickly evaporate once she focuses on the music in her almost daily dance classes. She also breaks other shackles brought on by Parkinson’s. “The dancing also helps with fear, anxiety and depression,” Talcott said. “It’s the best medicine ever for this thing.”

New research led by scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Northwestern Medicine appears to back her claim. They found that high-intensity exercise three times a week is not only safe for people with early-stage Parkinson’s disease, it also decreases the worsening of motor symptoms.

The Reconnect with your Body program empowers participants to discover new ways to move by teaching how to think like a dancer, connect with your breath and find radical compassion for often ailing body parts. Click the links below to hear the voices of Reconnect dancers.