About Dance for PD^® workshops and seminars

Since 2007, more than 2,000 people from 40 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 workshops, whether offered in person or online, are specially designed to help trained dancers and dance instructors adapt their 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. Online workshops include a special module on remote teaching. Download our complete training guide here for more information.

Although these workshops are specifically geared toward dance teachers, we welcome a diverse group of individuals who may be interested in the workshop for Educational & Professional Enrichment (EPE). 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.

Prerequisites

All trainees must satisfactorily complete an asynchronous 8-module online training program before attending the live synchronous online workshop. The cost of this 8-module course is $85 ($75 for members). It is expected that the self-directed course and assessment will take 8-10 hours to complete. You'll receive a link to this course when we approve your training application.

Workshop details

Facilitators:
David Leventhal (founding teacher and Program Director, Dance for PD) and Sarah Robichaud, founding teacher and director of Dancing with Parkinson's Canada)

Schedule: Four mornings: Tuesday, February 23 through Friday, February 26, 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time each day.

Location: Online via Zoom

Highlights: Comprehensive training modules, interactive teaching practicum, demo class, safety best practices, networking.

Credits: Earn up to 30 training credits toward the 50 credits required to be eligible for Dance for PD certification. Stay on and attend the Advanced Training workshop February 2-3 for additional training and credits.

Tuition: Standard rate: US $225
Member rate: US $205

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 (£65/CAN $108), which must be completed before the workshop.

To join us:

Enrollment is extremely limited, and workshop places are available on a first preregistered first reserved basis. Our workshops tend to become fully subscribed very quickly.

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.

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 300 communities in 25 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 2018 Martha Hill Mid-Career Artist Award, 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 pioneering dance-based elective courses that are part of the Narrative Medicine curricula at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and the NYU School of Medicine. 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 the first Dance for PD® Certified Teacher in Canada. Sarah is a classically trained dancer, author, entrepreneur, and charismatic leader, who has been recognized as a force for purposeful and impactful change as the founder and executive director of the registered charity ‘Dancing with Parkinson’s.’ Sarah studied and performed extensively throughout Canada, Europe and Moscow where she trained at the Bolshoi Ballet School, and has performed and choreographed for many theatre, film and television projects over the last 20 years. Sarah’s interest in Parkinson’s Disease began in the spring of 2007 when her client Andy Barrie (formerly of CBC Metro Morning) asked for help managing his physical PD symptoms through exercise. Sarah learned about the innovative PD dance class being offered by Dance for PD and went to New York to take part in their first teacher training program. Sarah was immediately inspired to offer DWP dance classes in Toronto starting in 2008 and thus Dancing with Parkinson’s Canada was born. DWP now offers classes in over 15 locations throughout the Greater Toronto Area. Sarah’s passion for helping other connect and express through dance prompted her to launch her most recent initiative, a groundbreaking dance and arts program focused on addressing mental health challenges of First Nations peoples in Pikangikum, a struggling community with the world’s highest suicide rate.

About Dance for PD®

The Mark Morris Dance Group's Dance for PD® program invites people with Parkinson's and their families in more than 300 communities and 25 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. Evidence from 40 peer-reviewed scientific studies serves to underpin the effectiveness and benefits of the Dance for PD teaching practice.

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 Angie Seto, Manager, Community Dance Programs for Seniors, at Canada’s National Ballet School. She can be reached via email at aseto@nbs-enb.ca or by phone at 416-964-3780.