Dance for Parkinson’s Disease at JMU (JMU DFPD): Arts and Healing

4-Sentence Summary

This project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between three School of Theatre and

Dance students and two School of Music students to create and facilitate dance classes for
individuals with Parkinson’s Disease, with the hope that this collaboration will establish the
university as a site for research examining how dance and music could potentially ease the
troubling symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. To learn about planning and facilitating these
classes, we are requesting funding for travel to Toronto, Canada to attend training offered by the
Dance for Parkinson’s Disease organization. These trainings will help us better understand how
to fulfill our respective roles: dance students assisting in teaching the classes, and music
students providing live accompaniment. We expect the project to lead not only to findings on this
topic but also to further work at JMU around the larger theme of arts and health integration.

Interdisciplinary/Engaged Description

This project is an interdisciplinary collaboration. Our team is comprised of five students:

Lauren Abrams, Ashton Clevenger, and Chloe Conway (School of Theatre and Dance); and
Thomas Hassett and Abby Wiegand (School of Music). Our goal is twofold: 1) to work as an
interdisciplinary group along with Professors Kate Trammell (STAD), David Stringham (SOM),
and Jesse Rathgeber (SOM) to launch a program of dance classes that engages community
members with Parkinson’s Disease (PD); and 2) to help establish a research laboratory to study
effects of arts and health integration. Developing a Dance for Parkinson’s Disease program at
JMU will require us to work together, teaching and musicking in an environment that demands
constant communication to create a smooth and positive experience for the participants that,
ultimately, is fun. In the short term, we will meet on a biweekly basis to practice the flow of a
typical DFPD class. Dancers on our team will practice the instructional skills and methods, while
musicians will improvise accompaniment for them. We will also discuss material from the online
training modules we are completing independently, and use those discussions to fine-tune our
lesson plans. In the long term, we, along with collaborating CVPA faculty members, would like to
establish JMU, and CVPA specifically, as a resource for other people interested in connections
and benefits between arts and health, continue offering classes to community members, and
serve as an example for future satellite programs. We also plan to collaborate with a student
from JMU’s Center for Entrepreneurship or College of Business to help us with entrepreneurial
goals, as described below.

Entrepreneurial Description

A long-term goal of this project is to establish the university as a place for those with
Parkinson’s Disease and their loved ones and caretakers to take dance classes, free of charge.
Although it will be a non-profit effort intended to allow all interested parties to participate, our
JMU DFPD venture will need to be financially stable in order to provide the necessary
instructors, equipment, space, and personnel training. While this endeavor may not be
considered entrepreneurial in the sense of starting a for-profit business, it resonates with JMU’s
definition of entrepreneurship: “identifying, developing, and bringing a vision to life under
conditions of risk and uncertainty.” As mentioned in the interdisciplinary/engaged description,
Patrick McQuown, Executive Director of JMU’s Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) has
confirmed that he will recommend a student from CFE or the College of Business to help us
develop a plan for financial support through grants and sponsorship by private or corporate
donors. Additionally, we note that CFE’s Summer Venture Accelerator may be a venue for
additional financial support and guidance in developing a viable business plan. Our October
2018 trainings in New York City not only provided us guidance about teaching and making
music for DFPD classes, but also provided information about how to build and administer such a
program that offers free-of-charge instruction supported by donations from individuals and
organizations.

Project Narrative

We are proposing a multi-semester, multi-faceted, interdisciplinary project combining

community engagement and research. We will partner with School of Theatre and Dance
(STAD) and School of Music (SOM) faculty to develop a Dance for Parkinson’s program
at JMU (JMU DFPD). With the support of this grant, we plan travel to Toronto, Canada to take
part in an introductory training workshop through the Dance for PD organization. As teaching
assistants and musicians in the program, participation in JMU DFPD encourages us to expand
our studies by developing knowledge of ​arts and health integration through these specialized
classes. ​Dance for Parkinson’s Disease, a collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance
Company and Brooklyn Parkinson’s Group, addresses the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
(PD) in an environment that inspires creativity, social interaction, and the joy of music and
movement (“About Us” 2010). In fact, existing research suggests these dance classes may help
with overall mood control and a reduction of anger outbursts, as well as motor control and
function (Lewis et. al. 2014; de Natale et. al. 2017). Trained dance instructors help people with
PD to improve the symptoms of their condition through a focus on coordination, balance, and
flexibility. This program has partners in 250 locations and 24 countries worldwide (“Dance for
PD” 2010).
This fall, we have taken steps toward expanding our expertise in this art integration
through interactions with the DFPD organization. Several strategy meetings with our professors
have already taken place, and we have begun the ​DFPD online training course. Thanks to the
generous support of Dean George Sparks, we traveled to New York City in October 2018 to
receive instruction from DFPD professionals and observe classes. After getting first-hand
knowledge through observation and a private workshop, we were able to see how movement
and music are beneficial to participants with PD. Building on our time in New York, we will
continue to observe, help teach, and play in local DFPD classes and complete the online
training course. In the spring semester, we will assist with weekly JMU DFPD classes at the
Forbes Center. We will include a biweekly training lab in which we will practice in-class
collaboration by meeting in a dance studio and workshopping dance lesson plans and
choreography with improvised accompaniment. ​The most crucial aspect of our proposal is our
trip to Toronto in late January to participate in a DFPD training course. This workshop is
necessary for helping us gain valuable information and experience through c​omprehensive
training modules, an interactive teaching practicum, demo classes, safety best practices, and
networking. We’ll continue to develop and refine these skills through our biweekly meetings and
pilot JMU DFPD courses in Spring 2019.
Student researchers from STAD will serve as teaching assistants while SOM student
researchers will serve as accompanists, improvising music to match qualities of the movement.
Because a person with PD may have a disability that prevents them from fully extending limbs or
supporting themselves while standing upright, teaching assistants will need to modify
choreography for these individuals while keeping them safe and uninjured.
During each JMU DFPD class, we will engage with each other as well as program
participants. Dance teachers must learn to communicate with their accompanist partners during
lessons, and musicians must learn to be responsive while keeping a clear rhythm to help class
participants. This type of clear communication between dancers and pianists is crucial when it
comes to maintaining productivity. It is a learned skill acquired through experience and an
important aspect of many jobs in the field of performance arts, although it is unfortunately not
often discussed in our respective degree programs at JMU.
We expect our experiences with JMU DFPD to give us a clear idea of how our
capabilities and training can go beyond studios or practice rooms to make a difference
throughout our communities. Additionally, we should be able to communicate our findings to
incoming teachers, accompanists, and other participants in JMU DFPD. As all our team
members plan on teaching in some capacity in their career, this experience will offer us
significant knowledge about teaching classes, whether dance or music, to a different population.
Another important lesson is the necessity of arts and health integration and therapeutic
applications of the arts. Performing arts can be used to benefit and improve mental and physical
well being, and the integration of arts and health is being widely regarded as an effective and
feasible approach to therapeutic intervention for a wide range of health concerns (Raglio 2015;
Houston 2015). Our long-term goal is to study the importance of arts and health integration and
how therapeutic music and movement can positively impact the lives of those with Parkinson’s.
Eventually we would like to expand the program by introducing Music for PD classes at JMU,
based on DFPD principles and allowing participants to engage with another arts discipline.
Current research suggests these classes, while approaching the same problem from a different
angle, can have many of the same positive outcomes as the dance classes (Feel the Rhythm
2018; Dobson).
Over the next two years, we hope to begin conducting research on how dance and music
affect—and potentially ease—troubling symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. In Summer 2019, we
plan to partner with a team of CVPA faculty to seek funding from the National Endowment for
the Arts, under their renewable two-year Research Labs grant program. Our findings on these
important questions related to initiating our JMU DFPD program will open up research
opportunities and generate questions that can be answered through subsequent collaborative
studies with university students in other disciplines, such as psychology, physical and
occupational therapy, and social work. As collaborative artists, we will be able to work together
to help create a meaningful space for community engagement and research to benefit the local
community.

Detailed Timeline

To provide context, we’ve included some of the actions we’ve already taken on this project:

-Oct 1 -- Started the Introductory Dance for PD online course. This online training course
helps artists gain some of the background knowledge on the disease itself that will be needed
before embarking on practical learning that will help with safe, effective, and high quality delivery
of dance sessions for people with Parkinson’s Disease.

-Oct 12-14 -- New York trip to observe Dance for PD and Music for PD classes hosted by
Mark Morris Dance Group. We observed and participated in three Dance for PD dance classes
as well as a Sing for PD class, giving us hands-on experience with several groups and teachers.
We were also given a private workshop in which we were specifically taught the importance of
collaborative musicians. We utilized a studio where the musicians were taught how to improvise
based off of the dancers’ movement, counts, and rhythm.

With this proposal, we are requesting support for:

-Beginning in late October 2018 -- Help teach and play in local sample classes. We will
be going to the Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community for our first sample class on October
26 and to Sunnyside Retirement Community on November 9. We will use information and
experience gained from these classes in our biweekly labs to help refine our skills for the spring
weekly classes at the Forbes Center.

-Beginning in November 2018 -- Biweekly weekend meetings to discuss information we

are learning in the online course and to explore/practice collaborative relationships between
music and dance.

-Jan 31-Feb 1 2019-- Dance for PD course in Toronto, Canada. Craig Wingrove, lead
musician for the Canada DFPD program (highly respected authority on music and dance
collaborations, composer, author of several music/dance books), has expressed excitement
about mentoring us through this process. This is the only training scheduled in North America
during our grant period; other training takes place in Asia.

-February 2019 -- Following our training course in Toronto, we will begin to assist with
the Dance for PD classes at JMU. The classes will be held on Saturday mornings at the Forbes
Center for the Performing Arts throughout the semester (approximately 10 classes).

Itemized Budget
 Dance For Parkinson’s Disease Workshop Tuition $225 x 5 attendees
Toronto, Canada =​$1,125
January 31- February 1, 2019

Chelsea Hotel $121 per room per night

Toronto, Canada =​$726
2 Rooms x 3 nights
Parking included

Transportation
James Madison University 5 Passenger Vehicle =​~$283
Gas included
EZ Pass included for tolls
$.28 per mile, ~1,100 miles (round trip)

Per Diem $112 per 2 full days +

As per James Madison University M+IE Per Diem Rates $84 per 2 travel days=$308
4 Days, first and last day of travel = 75% of M+IE $308 x 5
5 students ​=$​​1,540

​Total budget for project: ​$3,674

Acknowledging that the grant could allow up to $3,000, we are more than willing to be
held collectively responsible for the remaining per diem.

Bibliography

Dobson, C. “Neurologic Music Therapy for Parkinson's.” ​APDA​,

www.apdaparkinson.org/what-is-parkinsons/treatment-medication/alternative-treatment/musi
c-therapy/​.

Dance for PD » About us. (2010). Mark Morris Dance Group. Retrieved from
https://danceforparkinsons.org/about-the-program​.

Dance for PD » New York. (2010). Mark Morris Dance Group. Retrieved from
https://danceforparkinsons.org/find-a-class/class-locations/united-states/new-york

Feel the Rhythm: Music Therapy and Parkinson's Disease. (2018, August 14). Retrieved from
http://parkinson.org/blog/research/Music-Therapy-Parkinsons-Disease-Feel-Rhythm
Houston, S. (2015, June 17). Dancing with Parkinson's. Retrieved from
http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/on-health/2015/04/29/dancing-parkinsons/

Lewis, C., Davenport, S., & Annett, L. (2014). Mood changes following social dance sessions in
people with Parkinson's disease. Retrieved from
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359105314529681

De Natale, Edoardo Rosario, et al. “Dance Therapy Improves Motor and Cognitive Functions in
Patients with Parkinson’s Disease.” ​NeuroRehabilitation,​ vol. 43, no. 2, 6 Mar. 2017, pp.
141–144. ​IOS Press Content Library,​ doi:10.3233/NRE-161399.

Raglio, A. (2015). Music Therapy Interventions in Parkinson’s Disease: The State-of-the-Art.

Retrieved from ​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553388/