By Claudine Naganuma
I’m a choreographer and dance teacher living and working in Oakland, California, where I teach ballet, creative movement and composition to youth, adults and elders. A core belief that inspires my teaching is that art can be used as a tool for healing. Through the power of creativity and movement, we have the power to transform trauma and achieve personal power and dignity. I direct a ballet studio called Danspace. It is the home base for my dance company, dNaga, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2021. It has also been the home to our program, Dance for PD® since 2007.
Dance for PD® originally began in Brooklyn by the Mark Morris Dance Group in partnership with the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. The program is offered in more than 300 communities and 25 countries, bringing the art of dance into their lives. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological movement disorder which is both idiopathic and currently without a cure. Those with Parkinson’s experience bradykinesia, which includes slowness of movement, weakness, tremor and rigidity. The disease can make it challenging to start and stop movement and have some effect on executive functioning.
It would seem that those who suffer with PD would be unlikely candidates to take dance, and yet the tools that we employ as dancers to execute movement sequences seems to work remarkably well for students with Parkinson’s. Dance for PD® classes offer dance instruction in the studio with live music with an emphasis on aesthetics using imagery and musicality. These are tools that dancers use to execute and recall movement sequences and have been found to have a profound impact on students with Parkinson’s. Although it may be difficult for someone with Parkinson’s disease to turn on command, dance has a way of unlocking movement through an alternative neural pathway. When dancers are asked to follow butterflies across the revolving moon, they also find themselves revolving. This joy of movement, coupled with poetic imagery, can also invoke memories and sensations.
Parkinson’s disease usually affects older adults who bring with them a great deal of life experience and wisdom. They have experienced a rich work and home life, have travelled, read, been theater goers and experienced adventure. All of these experiences can be called upon and used as kinesthetic motivators. Metaphor and imagery inspire the dynamic quality and sensation we dance teachers employ to acquire movement execution with a certain look or feel. Sharing these tools with dancers who have a wealth of life’s experiences can reawaken long tucked-away memories and create a profound dance experience. Propelled by live music that speaks directly to what and how a dancer is moving, the student is transformed into a space that can, even if briefly, transcend the weight of Parkinson’s. In addition, dancing with others helps the ensemble achieve artistic symbiosis and stimulates the social aspect of community. The diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease can create feelings of shame, frustration and denial which then could manifest in a feeling of isolation. Dancing within an ensemble directly combats these feelings.
Often, I will hear people with PD talk about how they have lost touch with a part of themselves. This frustrating experience and fear of losing agency is exacerbated and described as though they are being betrayed by their own body. Dance is a way to reconnect with the body through the circuitous route of art. Dance finds ways to stimulate new neural pathways to get the body to move in certain ways involving play, whimsy and joy. It brings me great pleasure as a teacher to witness how dance can enliven the spirit and reconnect students to sensations of the body.
I strive to be sensitive to the mental and emotional states of my students. This requires perceptiveness and empathy to meet students where they are. This is particularly important when working with students with Parkinson’s disease. As an instructor of Dance for PD®, my class is very similar to other dance classes that I teach. This includes starting with a warm-up to awaken and mobilize the muscles, a ballet barre to focus on alignment, stretch and strength and a center combination that culminates into a more complex sequence that synthesizes the themes of a given class. In the spirit of generating creativity and practicing artistic decision making, I often include a structured improvisation exercise or group composition activity. As in other of my dance classes, I am introducing concepts around the elements of dance (time, space and dynamic quality). Each Dance for PD® teacher brings his/her own artistry to this approach. As a previous Djerassi artist in residence who was reminded every day by a traffic sign that read “yield to whim,” I encourage my students to deepen their trust in their own capacity to be creative. So many of us have been conditioned to believe that there is a right and a wrong way to do things. Many of us have lost connection to play, experimentation and are afraid to make mistakes for fear of looking foolish. I strongly believe that improvisation and practicing creative problem solving is crucial for developing flexibility and non-attachment that helps us develop resiliency in daily life.
Soon after I started teaching Dance for PD® I was approached by one of the students who wanted an opportunity to take his dance training to the next level and expressed a desire to have a performance opportunity. This student was a general practitioner, who despite being a doctor, pointed out that most family doctors were not trained in spotting the telltale signs of Parkinson’s disease. His suggestion motivated the next chapter in our PD story. I interviewed him along with others in our dance class, and it became the sound score for a dance that we created together in collaboration with composer Joel Davel.
As a result of this dance performance in 2009, my company dNaga launched a journey to find out how to “find peace” while living with this disease. Over the years, our method of investigation has included an extensive interview process with people with Parkinson’s disease and medical professionals. Themes have included how PD affects identity, work and family life. We’ve looked at diagnosis, symptoms, medicine, food, surgery, dance and quality of life. Bringing these interviews into the studio, my dancers and I have had an opportunity to unpack the experience of having Parkinson’s disease and to develop movement phrases that represent those experiences. A collection of dance work has been developed over the years that we refer to as the PEACE Project.
Since the work is created with and by dancers who are living with Parkinson’s disease, issues directly affecting health and wellness have been at the forefront of the dances. We quickly discovered that those living with PD have the most information about how to manage PD. It also became clear that many of the stories included similar experiences at the time of (mis)diagnosis, lack of information around how much protein in food prohibits the effectiveness of medication, and how important it is to understand that each individual has a unique set of symptoms and progressions. Through dance, we have been able to share these valuable insights with others who have been diagnosed with PD as well as with the medical professionals who serve them. The PEACE Project has been presented at the World Parkinson Congress in Portland, Oregon in 2016, and in Kyoto, Japan in 2019. A compilation of interviews and photographs of dancers entitled PEACE About Life; Dancing with Parkinson’s was also published last year.
When I started teaching Dance for PD® thirteen years ago, I had no concept of what a profound journey I was embarking on. The students have taught me about appreciation and resiliency. Working with dancers with Parkinson’s is very different from working with young dancers who eventually move on because of graduation, children or a new career. With Parkinson’s, the progression of the disease, along with the natural aging process is undeniable. As a teacher and program director, I have grown close to my students and have learned a great deal about the reality of aging, sickness and death. It strengthens my resolute belief that each of us has a unique opportunity to share our special gifts during this precious time that we have. We are in a time in society where we are called to awaken and break down the systems of oppression. This most importantly calls for us to break our own oppressive systems that can keep us from experiencing freedom. Owning our own creative power to make and change takes tremendous courage. Parkinson’s disease does not stop my students from living creative full lives. Despite the struggles of the body and of this life, they have taught me that there is great resiliency in the human spirit.