The Dance for PD® program at Danspace is led by Claudine Naganuma and is currently held in person and on zoom. Classes are free for all who attend. If you would like to attend, please submit this registration form.
Finding balance
Dance for PD®
dNaga in partnership with Danspace offers DANCE for PD®
A program of the Mark Morris Dance Group
Weekly Class Information
While dancing, whether in chairs, at the barre, or standing, everyone in the class explores comfortable dance movements in an enjoyable, non-pressured, social environment with music that energizes, enriches, and empowers.
Class Information
Thursdays from 10:30-11:45 am (zoom)
Fridays TBA (in person)
Saturdays from 10:30-11:45 am (in person)
Classes are free to participants
In person classes held at 5390 Miles Avenue, Oakland (Danspace Studio 3)
Teachers
Claudine Naganuma, Freesia Huth
To Register
In order to receive the zoom link, please fill out the registration form HERE!
For more information, email dnagaler@gmail.com
About Dance for PD®
These classes are appropriate for anyone with PD, no matter how advanced. No dance experience is necessary. The classes combine elements of modern dance, ballet, improvisation, and dance composition that creates an enjoyable, stimulating, non-pressured artistic experience for people with PD. Dance for PD® started as a unique collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group, a chapter of the National Parkinson Foundation. The Dance for PD® teaching method is built on one fundamental premise: professionally-trained dancers are movement experts whose knowledge is useful to persons with PD. Dancers know about stretching and strengthening muscles, and about balance and rhythm. Most importantly, dancers know how to use their thoughts, imagination, eyes, ears and touch to control their movements. While dancing, whether in chairs, at a barre, or standing, everyone in the class explores comfortable dance movements in an enjoyable, non-pressured, social environment with music that energizes, enriches and empowers.
“Having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, I was looking for ways to connect to a community and to add movement to my life. I was not disappointed. Claudine’s classes are dynamic, creative, fun and joyful. In these classes, we are dancers, not patients. I am not alone in saying that this class is the highlight of my week.”- Martha Friedberg
History of Dance for Parkinson’s at Danspace
The Dance for PD® program started in Brooklyn by members of the Mark Morris Dance Group in 2001, spearheaded by Program Manager David Leventhal. The Dance for PD® program at Danspace was initiated by Claudine Naganuma in 2007 when David Leventhal taught a master Dance for PD® class at Danspace. The classes were held bi-monthly, until 2009 when the Danspace program in partnership with PD Active was able to offer weekly classes year-round.
For more information on the original and happening program in Brooklyn, visit https://danceforparkinsons.org/
Meet the instructors
CLAUDINE NAGANUMA is a choreographer and the creative director of dNaga. She started teaching dance for Parkinson’s in 2008 and premiered “PEACE about Life; Dancing with Parkinson’s” in 2010. For more information please visit dnaga.org.
Freesia Paclebar Huth has been dancing in the Bay Area since she was three. A native San Franciscan, she was a competitive ice skater in her youth, performing atop the Emporium-Capwell building in their yearly rooftop ice show. She is a founding member of Patricia Reedy and Dancers, and has performed with Colette Bisher-Choate, Unbound Spirit, George Latimer, New York choreographer, David Rousseve’s Reality Company, Purple Moon Dance Project and numerous Bay Area choreographers. Freesia has studied yoga and teaches Tai Chi to adults. She is one of the original partners of Luna Kids Dance, a developmentally based dance school and education program for teachers, where she taught in the children’s program for 11 years. She has choreographed for Berkeley Repertory Theater and the California Shakespeare Festival.
Reasons to dance
From Dance for Parkinsons website (https://danceforparkinsons.org/)
- Dance develops flexibility and instills confidence.
- Dance is first and foremost a stimulating mental activity that connects mind to body.
- Dance breaks isolation.
- Dance invokes imagery in the service of graceful movement.
- Dance focuses attention on eyes, ears and touch as tools to assist in movement and balance.
- Dance increases awareness of where all parts of the body are in space.
- Dance tells stories.
- Dance sparks creativity.
- The basis of dance is rhythm.
- The essence of dance is joy.
Thank you to our funders
This program is supported in part by a community grant from the Parkinson’s Foundation.
