By Elizabeth Grover
It is well known that exercise is beneficial therapy for those living with Parkinson’s disease. But in recent years, more varied kinds of physical activity are beginning to be researched and proven to help as well, and one of the most highly touted is dance. There are hundreds of dance programs for those in the Parkinson’s community throughout the world, but the headquarters for PD dance worldwide is the Dance for PD program in Brooklyn, New York. According to their website,
The award-winning Dance for PD® program, founded in 2001, offers specialized dance classes to people with Parkinson’s, their families, friends and care partners online, in New York City and through our network of affiliates in more than 300 communities in 25 countries around the world. Dance for PD classes invite people with Parkinson’s to experience the joys and benefits of dance while creatively addressing symptom-specific concerns related to balance, cognition, motor skill, depression, and physical confidence. The program ... uses dance to empower people with Parkinson’s and their care partners and families to explore movement and music in ways that are refreshing, enjoyable, stimulating and creative ... The program’s fundamental working principle is that professionally-trained dancers are movement experts whose knowledge about balance, sequencing, rhythm, and aesthetic awareness is useful to persons with PD. In class, teaching artists integrate movement from modern, ballet, tap, folkloric, traditional and social dancing, and choreographic repertory to engage participants’ minds and bodies and create an enjoyable, social environment for artistic exploration.
In addition to classes in their Brooklyn studio, the Dance for PD program offers free online classes once or twice daily. Additionally, the program includes training workshops (also both online and in-person) and a rigorous certification process. The training has helped launch hundreds of successful programs around the world. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many of these have offered free classes online.
In our area, the program that began with two pilot classes (taught by Dance for PD’s David Leventhal) in 2011 continues 11 years later with four weekly classes – two at the Cincinnati Ballet, one at the Wyoming Fine Arts Center and one at the Yellow Springs Senior Center. For more information, click here. It may be the most fun you have had moving in a long time! And no experience or proficiency is required!
A few months ago we published a list of free online PD exercise classes. We intentionally excluded dance because there are so many dance classes, but now it is the time now to list some online dance classes. These are just a few of the classes offered for people living with Parkinson’s. Almost all of these classes welcome care partners and friends as well. This is a way you can interact with your care partner that will be fun – not drudgery!
Online Dance Classes for people with PD
Amy Says Dance Amy Carlson offers a class daily at 11:15am ET.
APDA Northwest offers many classes each week but Dance for Mind, Body and Spirit comes to you from Seattle at 3pm ET on Sundays.
Dance for Parkinson’s from the San Francisco Ballet offers an online class Mondays at 5pm ET.
Maryland Youth Ballet in partnership with the Bowen McCauley Dance Company offers Zoom classes at 2:30pm ET on Tuesdays and a library of recorded classes on YouTube.
Dance for PD (The original!) offers at least five and as many as eight classes each week online – including dance classes in Spanish and in Mandarin Chinese! You can also use their website to access class information for any of their affiliate locations around the world.
Houston Area Parkinson Society offers a class on Mondays at 1:45pm ET.
Sarasota Ballet offers an online class on the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays at 10:45am ET. This class is in partnership with the Neuro Challenge Foundation.