Think Like a Dancer A special series for Parkinson's Awareness Month The Dance for PD® program is built on one fundamental premise: professionally-t

     

Think Like a Dancer

A special series for Parkinson's Awareness Month

The Dance for PD® program is built on one fundamental premise: professionally-trained dancers are movement experts whose knowledge is useful to persons with PD. Dancers know all about stretching and strengthening muscles, and about balance and rhythm. Dancers know about the power of dance to concentrate mind, body and emotion on movement because they use their thoughts, imagination, eyes, ears and touch to control their bodies every day. With that in mind, we're here to share some tips with you and invite you to bring more dance into your life. Join us!

April 1

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Members of the Brooklyn Parkinson Group in class at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dance develops flexibility and instills confidence.

Notes: Dancers certainly work on increasing their muscular flexibility throughout their training. But let's also think about flexibility in broader terms: the ability to approach movement with a variety of dynamics (bound, sustained, direct, indirect) and to explore a wide range of dance movements that may fall outside traditional therapeutic models--things like glides, wiggles and heel jabs. And by exploring that range and mastering new movements, people focus on what they can do and get a burst of confidence as a result.

April 2

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Members of the Brooklyn Parkinson Group in class at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dance is first and foremost a stimulating mental activity that connects mind to body.

Notes: Dancers process complex movements, musical and spatial cues, emotional and expressive ideas, and sophisticated imagery to generate movements that are graceful, evocative, and clear. Dance training requires intensive cognitive activity in addition to physical demands. Which is why one of our participants notes, "Using and focusing the body like an instrument--the paintbrush of an artist or the horn of the jazz musician--creates an intense integrative force."

April 3

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Closing circle from a Dance for PD class at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dance breaks isolation.

Notes: "There was an observable and reported development of social interaction, to such an extent that several reports tallied in mentioning that the dance class was a better place for getting to know people than Parkinson’s Support Groups." (A mixed-methods study into ballet for people living with Parkinson's, Sara Houston and Ashley McGill, Arts & Health: An International Journal for Research, Policy and Practice, Dec. 2012)

April 4

Judy on film

Judy's improvisation.

Dancers invoke imagery in the service of graceful movement.

Notes: "I am absorbed in the magic of movement and light. Movement never lies. It is the magic of what I call the outer space of the imagination. There is a great deal of outer space, distant from our daily lives, where I feel our imagination wanders sometimes. It will find a planet or it will not find a planet, and that is what a dancer does."--Martha Graham

April 5

Capturing Grace

A scene from Capturing Grace, a new film by Dave Iverson.

Dancers focus attention on eyes, ears and touch as tools to assist in movement and balance.

Notes: Dance activates senses we may not use elsewhere. In a recent survey of Brooklyn and Manhattan Dance for PD participants, 94% said they felt more alert when dancing.

April 6

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Students in the Dance for PD class at The Juilliard School.

Dancers develop an awareness of where all parts of the body are in space.

Notes: In dance class, we create enjoyable movement combinations that combine simple upper body movements with locomotive steps. Entering a state of flow, you feel every part of the body working together as a unified whole.

April 7

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Brooklyn Parkinson Group dancers in rehearsal.

Dancers use their faces and bodies to tell stories.

Notes: "If there is anything that sidelines you, exacerbates your sense of constriction and inhibition it is Parkinson’s. If there is anything that calls for expression, demonstration, drama, movement, expression and liveliness it is dance."--Luanne W., Dance for PD student, Berkeley, CA

April 8

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Dancer, choreographer and teacher Pamela Quinn.

Dance sparks creativity. And dancers think creatively about movement.

Notes:"The class helps me think about a certain kind of movement, and explore that movement, that I might not otherwise have encountered just walking around. It shifts my perspective and makes me think about things in an entirely new way."--Dance for PD participant, Brooklyn, NY

April 9

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Misty Owens leads class in Dallas.

The basis of dance is rhythm.

Notes: Dancers need to be good listeners. They need to translate the rhythm, melody, phrasing, and lyrics they hear into intelligible, musical movement. They go beyond taking cues from the music--they find a way to become one with the music.

"A dance is over as soon as the music is done."--Mark Morris

April 10

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Dance for PD Manhattan at The Juilliard School.

The essence of dance is joy.

Notes: "Joy, it’s not a quality you associate often with Parkinson’s. And, yet, it is what you see here. There are people in this class whose condition limits how they move, but not their smile or spirit."--Dave Iverson, reporting on Dance for PD for PBS NewHour, December 2010

April 11

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Snapping across the floor at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dancers think of bending their knees to shift weight from one leg to another.

Notes: Dancers practice pliés to develop strength, balance and suppleness in their legs, and to help them coordinate the transfer of weigh when they move from one foot to the next. Bending your knees in a conscious, controlled way helps dancers maintain control and stability as they move across the floor.

April 12

MMDG Festival Dance

Mark Morris Dance Group in Morris' Festival Dance.

Dancers think of balance as dynamic, not static.

Notes: Balance is achieved when lifting forces equal grounding forces. This makes achieving a state of balance a learned skill rather than an innate talent or lucky moment.

April 13

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Thinking and planning in Dance for PD class at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dancers plan and imagine their steps in their mind’s eye before moving.

Notes: The first rehearsal always happens in the mind. Rhythm is considered, movement is visualized. Then you're ready for the first step.

April 14

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Port de bras from Dance for PD At Home Volume 1.

Moving to a specific musical phrase helps dancers develop fluidity and rhythm.

Notes: "I move more freely and confidently now. The music rhythm helps me to know when to start, when to stop and i can control my speed of movement."--Dance for Parkinson's student, Pune, India

April 15

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A foot warm up at a Dance for PD class in Brooklyn.

Dancers train their feet to provide stability while moving or standing still.

Notes: In dance, strength is useless without articulation and grace. Feet and ankles also need to be strong as well as supple.

April 16

Misty Owens leads members of the Brooklyn Parkinson Group at the Mark Morris Dance Center. Photo by Rosalie O'Connor.

Members of Brooklyn Parkinson Group moving at the Mark Morris Dance Center.

Dancers focus on the movement between static positions—that’s where the dancing happens.

April 17

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David Leventhal demonstrates a movement at the 2013 World Parkinson Congress.

In dance, thinking about how a movement is done is as important as the movement itself.

Notes: Training focuses on the quality of movement rather than the quantity of repetitions, and goals are aesthetic, not mechanical.

April 18

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Dance for PD Manhattan at The Juilliard School.

Dancers think of their arms emanating from their backs, just like wings.

Notes: "When the dancers move their arms, they look like swans. And you try to do the same."--Brooklyn Dance for PD student

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Learn more

For more information about Dance for PD, and our global network of partners and affiliates, please visit www.danceforpd.org or call 1-800-957-1046.

To purchase one of our acclaimed At Home DVDs, please click here.

About Dance for PD®

Dance for PD® offers dance classes for people with Parkinson’s disease in Brooklyn, New York and, through our network of partners and associates, in more than 100 other communities in 11 countries around the world. In Dance for PD® classes, participants are empowered to explore movement and music in ways that are refreshing, enjoyable, stimulating and creative. An on-going non-profit collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group, the Dance for PD® program also provides teacher training and nurtures relationships among other organizations so that classes based on our model are widely available.

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Dance for PD is a registered trademark of Mark Morris Dance Group and Brooklyn Parkinson Group.

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