It started with a surf on the Internet. Marie Alonzo Snyder, a West Windsor resident, was reading a dance article online written by a friend of hers in Atlanta. A hyperlink took her to a site that focuses on careers dancers choose after they leave the stage, including information about dancers from the Mark Morris Dance Group who work with Parkinson’s patients. “I was intrigued because my father has been battling Parkinson’s disease since 1992,” Alonzo Snyder says. “He is now 83 and is really struggling but healthy.”
Alonzo Snyder is a faculty member at DanceVision, the nonprofit arm of Princeton Dance and Theater Studio, which fosters artistic excellence and professionalism among young emerging dancers. As soon as she read about the Parkinson’s program, she immediately knew that she wanted to know more and become trained to teach it in her community, simply to honor her father
“I would like to see myself help some people find the joy in movement — something I see my father struggle with every day. After learning about this program I asked Risa Kaplowitz [owner of Princeton Dance and Theater Studio and a former principal dancer with the Dayton Ballet and Manhattan Ballet] if she would be interested in helping me bring it to our community since there has been nothing like this done in New Jersey yet,” she says. “Risa was so thrilled and supportive — especially because her mother was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.”
The Mark Morris Group and Brooklyn Parkinson Group are collaborating with DanceVision and Parkinson Alliance to offer Dance for Parkinson’s Disease at PDT’s studios on Saturday, January 15, at 2:30 p.m. The class is free but registration is required. People with Parkinson’s disease, their caregivers, partners, and friends are invited to join in the pilot class taught by David Leventhal and John Heginbotham, Dance for PD founding teachers from the Mark Morris Dance Group. Leventhan and Heginbotham will also assess interest in creating an ongoing class taught by local teachers.
In the 90-minute class participants will explore elements of modern dance, ballet, tap, social dancing, and Mark Morris company repertory in a non-pressured environment that features live musical accompaniment. A community discussion with teachers and participants will follow the class.
Dance is beneficial for people with Parkinson’s disease because it develops flexibility and also connects mind to body. “Dance training in particular seems to fit Parkinson’s disease like a glove because the training itself addresses so many of the things that people with Parkinson’s start to have trouble with — balance, coordination, flexibility, rhythm, fluidity of movement, physical memory, automatic movement, specificity and motor control. If you asked a dancer to break down what their technique has taught them, it would include all of those elements,” says Leventhal.
A class begins with participants in a seated position utilizing simple leg and arm exercises before moving to a ballet barre. By the end of the class most of the dancers move across the floor gracefully.
Participants learn the same movements as professional dancers with the music reminding them to keep moving. “When members of the class see us in performance, they see that they’ve learned some of the same movements,” says Leventhal. “That gives them a sense of empowerment and a sense of community.”
Leventhal has danced with the Mark Morris Dance Group since 1997 and has appeared in more than 40 of Morris’ dances. Raised in Newtown, Massachusetts, he graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a focus on cultural performance in early modern drama. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Lauren.
John Heginbotham was raised in Anchorage, Alaska. He graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree from Juilliard School in 1993. He joined the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1998 and performs leading roles in “The Hard Nut” and “Four Saints in Three Acts,” part of the company repertory. He has also danced in the companies of Susan Marshall, Pilobolus Dance Theater, John Jasperse, and Ben Munisteri.
Dance for PD classes began at the Mark Morris Dance Center in Brooklyn in 2001 and have since been replicated in more than 40 other communities around the world. Classes are appropriate for anyone with PD — no matter how advanced. No prior dance experience is necessary.
Alonzo Snyder and Kaplowitz have contributed to the expenses of holding the pilot class, and Leventhal has guided Alonzo Snyder through the process of organizing the event. She also met with Carol Walton, chief executive officer of the Parkinson Alliance in Kingston, and with Helaine Isaacs, the event director for Parkinson Unity Walk. “Interestingly enough the evening before our meeting PBS aired a news segment on Dance for Parkinson, which they had both watched and were inspired by,” says Alonzo Snyder. “They gave DanceVision a grant toward the expenses of this event.”
Alonzo Snyder’s father, who lives in the Philippines, has a 24-hour nurse but is no longer able to visit Alonzo Snyder. “Last summer was the first summer he did not come to visit because travelling all the way from the Philippines is really very taxing and difficult for his condition,” she says. The last time he visited they were not able to get a visitor’s visa for his nurse, and it was very difficult for her mother to do all of the caring for him during the travel.
“I am so happy that the class is happening in January because January 21 is my mom’s 80th birthday,” says Alonzo Snyder. “I cannot be there due to performances I have at NJPAC that weekend, so I hope that with this special event I will be paying tribute to my parents from the other side of the world.”
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative movement disorder that results when the cells in the brain that produce the chemical dopamine are damaged and can no longer produce sufficient levels of the chemical. While PD usually progresses slowly in most people, symptoms exhibited vary from person to person and may include a resting tremor, rigidity, slow movement, and impairments in balance and coordination. Approximately 50,000 to 60,000 new cases of Parkinson’s are diagnosed in the United States each year.
The Princeton-based Parkinson Alliance is a national non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds to help finance the most promising research to find the cause and cure for Parkinson’s disease. Visit www.parkinsonalliance.org for more information.
DanceVision, a Plainsboro-based organization, has a mission to enrich the community with quality dance experiences, including performances, school residencies, and dance festivals. The founders include Susan Jaffe, a former principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, and Kaplowitz. Visit www.dancevisionnj.org for more information.
“I am so excited to see this happening,” says Alonzo Snyder. “I am planning on doing the training program in February or in May and hopefully bring more of these classes to our community.”
— Lynn Miller
Parkinson Disease Master Class, DanceVision, Princeton Dance and Theater Studio, 116 Rockingham Row, Plainsboro, 609-688-0020, www.danceforpd.org. Register. Free. Saturday, January 15, 2:30 p.m.
