Member Newsflash 8 Brief | Informative | Timely To view online, please click here Dance for PD® in performance Dancers from the Brooklyn Dance for

     
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Member Newsflash 8

Brief | Informative | Timely

To view online, please click here

Dance for PD® in performance

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Dance for PD® performer and Brooklyn Parkinson Group member Karen Scheyer in Mark Morris' Four Saints in Three Acts. (photo by Johan Henckens)

Dancers from the Brooklyn Dance for PD® program performed for a packed house last Sunday, Nov. 11 in the James and Martha Duffy Performance Space at the Mark Morris Dance Center. The program included adapted excerpts from Mark Morris' Four Saints in Three Acts and Mozart Dances, a world premiere by Dance for PD founding teacher John Heginbotham, and an new intergenerational work called Brooklyn's PEACE. That piece, choreographed by Oakland, CA choreographer Claudine Naganuma, included members of Naganuma's company dNaga and dancers from MMDG's Student Company II.

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Members of the Dance for PD® performance project in Mark Morris' Mozart Dances. (photo by Johan Henckens)

Featuring live music, and full costumes and lighting, the performance represented eighteen months of planning and rehearsal and was made possible because of the close, decade-long partnership between Brooklyn Parkinson Group and Mark Morris Dance Gruop. The experience was transformative for the Brooklyn Parkinson Group performers, choreographers, teachers and audience members alike. As one participant wrote after the performance: "I am so glad that I had decided to transcend my 'performance anxiety' and participate in this process. This and the program in general has enriched my life on so many levels." One audience member wrote that she was "moved beyond words by what I saw. I was astonished by how beautifully eloquent the movement of your dancers was. The courage, spirit, and joy that radiated from each and every performer moved me to tears... "

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Manny Torrijos, Janelle Barry, and Pam Quinn in Claudine Naganuma's Brooklyn's PEACE. (photo by Johan Henckens)

The rehearsal process and performance itself were captured by documentary filmmaker Dave Iverson and his crew for the film Capturing Grace, which will explore what happens when dancers with Parkinson's disease joining forces with a modern dance company to stage a live performance. You can see a trailer for the film here.

We are so proud of the performers' beautiful dancing, and we celebrate their inspiring achievement.

Dance for PD® At Home

At Home DVD Cover

An exclusive peek at the cover of the Dance for PD® At Home DVD

Our Dance for PD® At Home DVD Volume 1 is in the final stages of production and is due for release within the next two months. As members, you'll be the first to know when it is available!

Through a series of specially-designed movement phrases, viewers will explore the creative, stimulating, and joyful world of dance through tap, ballet, jazz, modern dance, and improvisation exercises. Each DVD also features phrases from choreographer Mark Morris’ repertory, with coaching and insight from Morris himself. Pianist William Wade’s selections from the classical and popular repertory complete what we hope will be a stimulating and enjoyable experience.

The DVD can be used to provide a complete dance lesson, in the comfort of a living room, to a person who has difficulty leaving his or her home or who lives in a community where no classes are available. The DVD can also be used as a resource to give current Dance for PD® students an opportunity to practice movements and techniques at home between class meetings, and to let new and potentially reluctant participants know just how fun dancing can be.

Dance for PD® en Español

As part of our commitment to reach a wider audience, our website now offers a page that describes the Dance for PD® program in Spanish. In addition, we have a new Spanish language version of our program brochure available upon request.

News briefs

Innovations: Mathematician Max Little has developed a non-invasive, inexpensive test that he hopes will offer a quick new way to identify the disease--over the phone. Read more

News article: Lynne Raider, one of a team of persons with Parkinson's who worked to create the first Dance for PD® classes in San Francisco, has been featured in a profile in the San Francisco Chronicle. Read more

Perspectives: Gary Turchin is a writer, poet, and visual artist who lives in Berkeley, CA. His 'rag on Parkinson's' provides a witty, poignant sketch comedy look at PD. Watch Turchin's video

Interview: Elizabeth Glover, a Dance for PD® member who helped launch classes in her community in Cincinnati last year, speaks about the program on Cincinnati Public Radio. Read more

Grant opportunity: The Emily List Fund for Performing Arts Therapy has been established by Emily's family to honor her memory as an actor, a dancer, a reviewer and a lover of the performing arts. The Fund will be used to support theater, dance and music projects aimed at helping the sick and disadvantaged in the interest of making their lives better and brighter through the performing arts. Read more

Research funding opportunity: How does culture affect health-related beliefs and practices? Artists and arts organizations may help answer this question through a new funding opportunity from the National Institutes of Health. On October 4, 2012 representatives of the NIH joined NEA director of Research & Analysis Sunil Iyengar to provide an overview of "(R24) Basic Social and Behavioral Research on Culture, Health, and Wellbeing" and answer questions. Listen

Members Only postings

Check out these items recently posted to the Members' pages.

New Members' Blog Post
David Leventhal writes about a class in Illinois that doesn't want to sit in a circle. Log in here and go to the Blog.
You can continue the conversation via our members' listserv.

Seeing music's effects on the brain
This animation shows how the cortex is activated during listening to a piece of Argentinian tango. It is based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, computational musical feature extraction and statistical modeling. Click here and scroll to the "Dance and Neuroscience" section.

Phone seminar library
The Dance for PD® phone seminar series continues, with all seminars archived and available to members anytime. We just added our recent conversation with dance scholar and sociologist Dr. Sara Houston, the pioneering lead researcher who, along with Ashley McGill, designed and conducted the study that investigated the effects of Dance for Parkinson's classes at the English National Ballet in London. Click here to log in and listen.

Connect with us

Dance for PD® is on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure you catch the latest news and information as it happens through our social media sites.

View past Newsflashes

Newsflash 1 November 2011
Newsflash 2 November 2011
Newsflash 3 December 2011
Newsflash 4 January 2012
Newsflash 5 March 2012
Newsflash 6 May 2012
Newsflash 7 August 2012

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