About Dance for PD^® workshops and seminars

Since 2007, more than 300 people from 30 states and six countries have participated in Dance for PD^® (Parkinson's Disease) workshops and professional development seminars, developed and produced by the Mark Morris Dance Group and Brooklyn Parkinson Group.

Our workshops are designed to enrich, inform and inspire a diverse group of individuals who want to learn about the unique approach of this internationally acclaimed community arts & health program from its original creators.

This seminar

This seminar is designed to provide physical and occupational therapists and students, social workers, and allied health professionals an inside look into the Dance for PD® program, and to learn about the program's best practices and methods. During this Dance for PD® seminar, our specially-created training modules and interactive sessions will provide a wealth of information to attendees, who will also have the opportunity to participate in an actual Dance for Parkinson's class with members of the local Parkinson's community.

Time and location

The seminar will take place on Thursday, October 4 from 10 am - 5 pm at the Garfield Community Center, 2323 East Cherry Street, Seattle, WA 98122.

Schedule

Thursday, October 4
10:00-11:00 Introduction to Dance for PD®
11:00-12:30 Dance for Parkinson's community class
12:30-1:15 Lunch and conversation
1:15-4:00 Seminar Modules: Core principles; what to expect; safety; teaching best practices; introduction to exercise design
4:00-4:30 Integrating improvisation into your practice
4:30-5:00 Wrap up

Tuition

Tuition for the all-day seminar is $85 per person ($75 for Dance for PD® members), $55 for full- or part-time students. Scholarships and financial aid are available to those demonstrating need. Catered lunch will be available for an additional $10 if requested. You may also bring your own lunch.

Enrollment is limited, and seminar places are available on a first-registered first-reserved basis. Our workshops and seminars tend to become fully subscribed very quickly.

Facilitators for this workshop

David Leventhal is a founding teacher and Program Manager for Dance for PD®, a collaborative program of the Mark Morris Dance Group and Brooklyn Parkinson Group that has now been used as a model for classes in more than 60 communities in seven countries. He leads classes for people with Parkinson's disease around the world and is the program's lead trainer, teaching other teachers in the Dance for PD® approach. He has written about the Dance for PD® program for such publications as Dance Gazette and Room 217, and has a chapters about the program in two forthcoming books: Multimodal Learning in Communities and Schools (Peter Lang), and Creating Dance: A Traveler's Guide (Hampton Press). He is a frequent guest speaker at Parkinson’s conferences and symposiums, and has been a presenter at the annual meetings of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH). He began a three-year term on the SAH's Board of Directors in May 2012. As a dancer, he performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1997-2011, performing principal roles in Mark Morris' The Hard Nut, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare. He received a 2010 New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie) for his performing career with Mark Morris.

Shawn Roberts has been the School and Education Outreach Director at Spectrum Dance Theater for the past nine years and joined the faculty of Spectrum fifteen years ago, teaching Ballet, Jazz, and Creative dance. The popularity of her classes led to collaborations with many of Seattle’s public and private schools, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Seattle Theater Group, as well as being featured on PBS Television. Ms. Roberts studied at Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle University, and Freehold Theater and Acting Studio where she studied on full merit scholarship. As a dancer, Ms. Roberts has performed with Seattle dance and theater companies since her teens and currently dances with Danca Brasil, located here in Seattle. Her belief that “dance is for every body” has lead her to teaching dance to children and adults with varied physical and/or mental challenges for the past 10 years. In 2009, Ms. Roberts completed Mark Morris’s Dance for Parkinson’s Teacher Training program, and has been successfully teaching Dance for Parkinson's in the Seattle Area for the past three years as well as managing Seattle’s fantastic team of Dance for Parkinson's Teachers.

Please begin the registration process here!

For more information about Dance for PD®, please visit www.danceforpd.org.

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 60 other communities 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 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. 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 in Washington D.C. The program was recognized 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.