138: Dance for Parkinson’s Disease

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This week on 5.6.7.EIGHT, Aleksandra interviews David Leventhal, Program Director at</span> <a href="https://danceforparkinsons.org/"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Dance for PD</span></a> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">— a part of the Mark Morris Dance Group.</span> <span style="font-weight: 400;">Through the program — which is on its 20th year — David teaches dance classes for people living with Parkinson’s disease and trains other teaching artists to do the same. What started as a humble six-person dance class has now grown to serve 300 communities across 30 different countries. David has received numerous humanitarian awards for his work and has contributed to several books and peer-reviewed studies on dance and Parkinson’s Disease.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">David is a true believer in the healing power of dance and is proactively teaching others to also believe. There’s a reason why his course has exploded over the past 20 years — the effect of dance on those with Parkinson’s Disease is simply too great to deny. On the podcast, David gives a brief history of Dance for PD and explains why he believes music and movement has a profound impact on all people — but especially on those with Parkinson’s.</span><span style= "font-weight: 400;"><br /> <br /></span></p> <p><strong>Moving Quotes:</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">”It’s that combination of the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional — together, inseparable — that makes dance such a powerful tool to maintain wellbeing and quality of life for everybody. But, particularly, for people with Parkinson’s.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Dance and dancers have a significant role in maintaining and improving quality of life among our older neighbors — and, in our case, among people with Parkinson’s.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">”In our classes, we’re not there to teach a therapy session. We’re not there to talk about Parkinson’s. We’re there to address mo