“Providing direct allyship and empowerment to communities bridging the arts and health.”
DanceStream Projects has a mission to spark brain health and build creative community through dance and movement.
DanceStream Projects is a creative collective in New York City, dedicated to building healthy, expressive and inclusive community through the vehicle of dance, as the art of body movement. We believe that dance is a universal language and that the arts, and specifically dance, are an integral part of the health care ecosystem! By engaging in co-creative arts practices, we are expanding our capacity and agency for promoting our individual and community health. By engaging in the arts, we are putting our brain health into our hands and our bodies.
DanceStream Projects is inspired by the concept of “upstreaming” health.
What is upstreaming? Upstreaming health is a concept that recognizes that the root causes of ill-health are systemic and especially within the western model of medicine further marginalize individuals and propagate a culture of crisis. Upstreaming health addresses supporting individuals and communities through a focus on prevention and empowerment. Upstreaming places health outside of the river – catching people before they fall in, invoking cooperation and interdependence in the larger health care ecosystem of housing, nutrition, green spaces, urban and rural design, legal assistance, immigration, education and social engagement. DanceStream Projects steps into this space to provide direct allyship and empowerment to communities bridging the arts and health.
Our Vision
Each one of us possesses the ability to harness our creative expression to support building meaningful communities around us. DanceStream Projects works with individuals, communities and organizations to amplify creative expression, build community and empower individuals by shifting the power of knowledge, expression and agency into their hands, minds and bodies. Together we build creative community and spark brain health!
Our Approach
Our programs engage in two key domains: Community and Education.
Our community-based dance programs ally with communities of older adults specifically people living with dementia and their care partners and lead in ensuring that no older adult or person living with dementia feels alone and without access to meaningful creative community engagement.
Our educational programs work to dismantle misconceptions and place power founded in evidence base in the hands of individuals and communities to be active agents in their own brain health across their life course, transform public narratives around aging, mental health and dementia and promote dementia-friendly community.
DanceStream Projects is a fiscally sponsored project of New York Live Arts, a 501(c)3 umbrella organization.Learn more about our Programs below
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS
STORIES IN THE MOMENT
Stories in the Moment is a dance, movement and storytelling program for and with people living with dementia.
The program is been offered bi-monthly through the Dementia Action Alliance serving people living with dementia in diverse communities across the US in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
DanceStream Projects received a Pilot Award for Brain Health Leaders from the Alzheimer’s Association, Global Brain Health Institute and Alzheimer’s Society UK to extend an online version of Stories in the Moment to three communities across the United States as well as to support a program evaluation that will include the voices of the people living with dementia we are seeking to serve into the further growth of this program. Programs are expected to start April 2022 and reach communities living in California, New York and Virginia.
Stories in the Moment was recently invited to partner with the Rubin Museum of Art to deliver a series of programs in collaboration with the Mindful Connections program. The collaboration starting in April 2022 will utilize the dance, movement and storytelling program to offer an embodied exploration of the Rubin exhibits and engaging communities of people living with dementia in discourse and creative expression inspired by them.
EVERY BODY MOVES
Every Body Moves is a community-based dance program to spark brain health for older adults. The program translates evidence-informed practices in how dance promotes brain health as we age, combining cardiovascular activity, targeted functional strengthening and balance, social connection and creative expression.
The program has been offered in partnership with the UCSF Memory and Aging Center Community Outreach Program – Creative Minds since 2020, targeting support to older adults across the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants in the program have shared that especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, these programs “open my window” and “were strengthening me and helping me get on with my life”.
In February 2022, the program will be offering its first bilingual Spanish and English program for older adults within the Mission Neighborhood Community Center in San Francisco.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
BRAIN HEALTH SALONS
Interactive, participatory community conversations on topics surrounding brain health. Brain Health Salons have been offered in four languages (Lithuanian, Polish, Mandarin and English) to diverse communities around the globe (Lithuania, Poland, Nigeria, Ireland, United States). They spark conversations, dismantle stigma and misconceptions about brain health, dementia, dance and inspire individuals and communities to engage their creativity.
Here is what a participant in a Brain Health Salon with the Tzu Chi Center in San Francisco stated after the activity: “This activity invited me to use imagination to achieve the unity of body and mind.”
BRAIN-FM
BrainFM is a co-creative educational tool that unites dance, science and storytelling to learn about the brain. BrainFM was created by Magda Kaczmarska and Dr. Anusha Mohan of Trinity College Dublin.
BrainFM has been successfully offered to diverse audiences around the globe, including >150 primary school students across Ireland as part of START – European Researcher’s Night as well as to global populations of people living with dementia.
BrainFM was invited to join the inaugural Creative Brain Week hosted by the Global Brain Health Institute in Dublin, Ireland. BrainFM will deliver 4 community-based events for diverse audiences including 2 in-person activities and 2 online activities (for primary school students and people living with dementia) 12-16 March 2022. To offer these events, BrainFM is honored to receive sponsorship from Creative Brain Week, the Dana Foundation and FENS (Federation of European Neuroscience Societies).