Canada's National Ballet School, Dancing with Parkinson's,
and Mark Morris Dance Group, present
A Dance for PD®
Introductory Workshop
for dancers, dance teachers, students, therapists, and allied health professionals
Sunday, February 25 - Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Canada's National Ballet School, Toronto, Canada
A program of Dance for Parkinson's Network Canada
We invite you to apply at the link below!
► Learn best practices and methods from founding teachers. ► Hone your teaching skills. ► Deepen your knowledge with our specially-created modules and acclaimed interactive sessions. ► Participate in an actual Dance for Parkinson's class with members of the Toronto Parkinson's community.
"A dynamic workshop and a fabulous life experience. I could not have been more pleased with time well spent.”—Dance for PD workshop trainee
"Dance for PD® is a hands-down success. It’s one of the most important programs for Parkinson’s disease in the country."—Mary Ellen Thibodeau, RN
RI Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association
Courtesy of People Dancing (photo by Rachel Cherry)
About Dance for PD® workshops and seminars
Since 2007, more than 1200 people from 32 states and 20 countries have participated in Dance for PD® (Parkinson's Disease) workshops and seminars, designed and produced by the Mark Morris Dance Group.
Our educational programs 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. To learn more about our complete four-step training program, including the pre-requisite online course, please click here.
This workshop
Our introductory workshop is specially designed to help dance teachers adapt your expertise to work effectively and comfortably with the Parkinson’s population under the guidelines and methodology of the Dance for PD® program. You'll cover special modules that focus on class structure, pedagogy and exercise design, and participate in a practicum class to develop class content and teaching techniques with founding teachers and other trainees, in addition to covering general modules about safety and working with Parkinson’s participants.
Although this workshop is specifically geared toward dance teachers, we welcome a diverse group of individuals who may be interested in the workshop for Educational & Professional Enrichment (EPE). In this workshop, you will attend as Active Auditors, participating in all group discussions and modules, while observing the teaching practicum on Day 2. The EPE program is designed to provide a comprehensive and intimate look at core components of the Dance for PD® program so that a wide variety of individuals without dance training or dance teaching experience can learn about our methods and benefit from our resources.
Our introductory workshops are non-certifying. Attendance at one of our introductory workshops is a prerequisite to qualify for our Dance Teacher certification program or Registered Teaching Assistant program.
Courtesy of People Dancing (photo by Rachel Cherry)
Time and location
The seminar will take place on Sunday, February 25, Monday, February 26 and February 27, 2018 at Canada's National Ballet School, 400 Jarvis St, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Schedule
Start and stop times are set; hourly schedule subject to change.
Sunday, February 25
12:00 Meet and greet with current Canadian Dance for Parkinson's teachers
1:00-5:00 p.m. Introduction, balance and freezing workshop, class structure
5:30-6:30 Film screening: Capturing Grace (David Iverson, 2014)
Monday, February 26
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Technique modules and teaching practicum
Tuesday, February 27
9:00 Class logistics/set up
10:00 Dance for Parkinson's community class
11:15 Community discussion
12:00-1:00 Wrap up and closing remarks
Tuition includes:
* all printed materials and sessions
* a one-year Dance for PD® program membership with special access to continuing education materials and tools (a $45 value), and access to our international teachers' listserv.
You'll also be able to add any of our popular and widely-used instructional DVDs and music CDs to your order when you register.
Please note that workshop tuition does not include the pre-requisite online course (£55/CAN $90), which must be completed before the workshop.
No payment is required to apply. Please click below to complete our application. We will notify you upon acceptance into the training program. At that point, we will let you know about accessing the online course and provide more information about workshop registration.
Questions?
For questions about eligibility or workshop content, please email david@danceforpd.org.
Foundation for Community Dance (UK), Photographer: Rachel Cherry
Workshop Reviews
"Extremely well coordinated, very respectful and appropriate content for a broad range of learners!"
—2012 workshop attendee
"This workshop was completely satisfying, both on personal and professional levels. I thoroughly enjoyed each day's activities and the way in which [the trainer] conducted the discussions and experientials. His teaching ability is outstanding, along with his understanding of group process...I feel uplifted and inspired by all I witnessed..."
—2012 Trainee
"My staff reported to me that this was the only training they had ever received in movement/exercise other than cursory information during nursing assistant or nursing training. They were so excited to start using the tools immediately and have other staff to partner with for spontaneous play with each other and the residents."
—2012 workshop attendee and assisted living facility senior manager
"I learned more than I could have ever imagined and I love to dance more than I ever imagined. I have already utilized some of your ideas into my treatment approaches with my patients and they have worked GREAT!"—2011 participant and DPT
Facilitators for this workshop
David Leventhal is a founding teacher and Program Director for Dance for PD®, a program of the Mark Morris Dance Group that has now been used as a model for classes in more than 250 communities in 24 countries. He leads classes for people with Parkinson's disease around the world and trains other teachers in the Dance for PD® approach around the world. He's co-produced three volumes of a successful At Home DVD series for the program and has been instrumental in initiating and designing innovative projects involving live streaming and Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson's. He received the 2016 World Parkinson Congress Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Parkinson's Community and was a co-recipient of the 2013 Alan Bonander Humanitarian Award from the Parkinson's Unity Walk. Leventhal has written about dance and Parkinson's for such publications as Dance Gazette and Room 217, and has a chapters about the program in two recently published books: Moving Ideas: Multimodal Learning in Communities and Schools (Peter Lang), and Creating Dance: A Traveler's Guide (Hampton Press). He is in demand as a speaker at international conferences and symposiums, and has spoken about the intersection of dance, Parkinson's and health at the Lincoln Center Global Exchange, Edinburgh International Culture Summit, University of Michigan, Rutgers, Penn State Hershey Medical Center, Brown, Stanford, Columbia, Georgetown, Tufts, and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Liège (Belgium), among others. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Davis Phinney Foundation, and is a member of the Advisory Council for the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center Arts & Humanities program. He was a 2016 Dance/USA Institute for Leadership Training mentor. Leventhal designed and currently teaches a pioneering dance-based elective course that is part of the Narrative Medicine curriculum at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He's featured in the award-winning 2014 documentary Capturing Grace directed by Dave Iverson. As a dancer, he performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1997-2011, appearing in principal roles in Mark Morris' The Hard Nut, L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet, on Motifs of Shakespeare. Leventhal received a 2010 Bessie (New York Dance and Performance Award) for his performing career with Mark Morris. He graduated from Brown University with honors in English Literature.
Sarah Robichaud is a classically trained dancer who has studied and performed extensively throughout Canada, Europe and Moscow where she studied at the Bolshoi Ballet School. She has performed and choreographed for many theatre, film and television projects over the last 15 years. Her passion for an optimum mind-body connection led her to become a certified personal trainer, incorporating functional training to help her clients improve their core strength and posture. Sarah is the on-air fitness expert for CBS Early Morning Saturday in New York and The Steven and Chris Show in Toronto. Sarah's newest book "Getting Fit Without Hitting the Gym" and her 2006 release "Working On The Ball - A Simple Guide to Office Fitness" provide the reader with straightforward workout tips to make being fit and healthy an enjoyable and sustainable way of life. Sarah's interest in Parkinson's disease began in the spring of 2007 when a client asked for help managing his physical PD symptoms through exercise. Sarah received her training in the Mark Morris Dance Group’s Dance for PD method in New York in 2007. In 2008, she launched Dancing with Parkinson's which offers on-going classes in six locations throughout Toronto. She recently became a Dance for PD® Certified Teacher.
About Dance for PD®
The Mark Morris Dance Group's Dance for PD® program, celebrating its 15th anniversary, invites people with Parkinson's and their families in more than 120 communities and 17 countries around the globe to experience the joys and benefits of dance while creatively addressing symptom-specific concerns related to balance, cognition, motor skill, depression and physical confidence. Through its innovative, internationally-replicated classes, acclaimed teacher training program, and high quality media resources, Dance for PD'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, folk and social dancing, and choreographic repertory to engage participants' minds and bodies and create an enjoyable, social environment for artistic exploration. Dance for PD has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, Dance Magazine, The Guardian and hundreds of other publications,and has been honored by several local, national and international awards, including the Parkinson Awareness Award, Alan Bonander Humanitarian Award, and the Sapolin Public Service Award from the New York City Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. Peer-reviewed research from the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and Germany suggests that dance provides a range of benefits, including improved walking and short-term mobility, enhanced quality of life and self-efficacy, and improvements in mood and social inclusion among people with Parkinson's. Dance for PD, which began in 2001 as a collaboration between MMDG and Brooklyn Parkinson Group, leverages technology—live streaming, a popular instructional At Home DVD series, and an experimental App for Google Glass—to make the program more available to its diverse and expanding network of constituents around the globe. The program actively pursues research opportunities with top academic centers including Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis, Stanford University, and Syracuse University.
In Toronto, Dance for PD partners closely with Dancing with Parkinson's and with Canada's National Ballet School to present training opportunities and foster other collaborative initiatives.
About Dance for Parkinson's Network Canada
The DFPNC—a consortium of partners including Canada’s National Ballet School, Dance for PD®, Dancing with Parkinson’s Canada, and Parkinson Canada is committed to:
* Improving accessibility to dance programs for people living with PD
* For the PD community: Improving access to classes and resources, regardless of physical mobility or geographic location
* For dance instructors: Increasing training opportunities and professional development resources for program delivery
* Expanding program offering and classes in communities across Canada
For all inquiries about the Network, please contact Rachel Bar, Manager of Health & Research Initiatives, at Canada’s National Ballet School. She can be reached via email at rbar@nbs-enb.ca or by phone at 416-964-3780 x.2160
