I am so excited to announce that as part of The Memory Tree, I have been awarded a a 3-year mini grant from New York Presbyterian. This work titled "Activating the Mind-Body Connection with Eastern Dance & Art" and will engage seniors experiencing early-stage Alzheimer’s disease who live at two Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs): Morningside Gardens in Harlem and River Terrace in Washington Heights.

These funds will provide 8 bi-weekly sessions at each NORC focused on learning and performing Bharatanatyam, creating hand sculptures, and holding culminating event/celebration with performance and art exhibit.

With learners at YM & YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood, we have worked on many kinds of rhythmic patterns,  exemplifying the modular nature of Bharatanatyam, and the possibility of a challenge alongside beauty and expression with simple elements. We have gone over a 7-beat rhythmic pattern (Mishram jaati) in the past. Now, we are learning a 5-beat rhythmic pattern (Khanda jaati). 
Bharatanatyam also provides the possibility of doing the steps in various formations, giving rise to beautiful imagery. The one below reminded us of a flower unfurling. 

Two recent articles regarding arts-in-health: the Jameel Arts and Health Lab report on the health benefits of the arts [1], and Clift et al. suggesting caution while interpreting these results [2] - gave me food for thought. When two eminent groups of researchers report on what seems to be the same topic and reach strongly differing conclusions, it raises the possibility that the question has not been framed well. For insights into how these differing perspectives might be harmonized, I suggest we expand our understanding of the interaction of arts and health to include learnings not only from the scientific and clinical sides of the question but also from practitioners of the arts. Though they do not come from laboratory, research, or clinical settings, we have thousands of years of insights into how the arts interact with personal health. I suggest that the learnings of the past, as embodied in the traditions and practices of experienced teachers of the present, could be a very fruitful source of insights that would help us reconcile and unite seemingly opposing points of view and move the field of arts-in-health forward.

My comment is from the perspective of a neuroscientist and practitioner of a traditional Indian dance form called Bharatanatyam - a 2,000-year-old art form. I have been a practitioner of Bharatanatyam for more than 30 years having started my journey in my hometown of Ahmedabad, India. In New York City now, I continue my training from my gurus in dance, Carnatic music, and language, and use Bharatanatyam for creative aging [3-5]. My field of expertise in neuroscience is synaptic plasticity in temporal lobe epilepsy [6]; and I share my love of science at The American Museum of Natural History by teaching educators neuroscience, evolution, genetics, and marine biology.

Current practitioners and teachers in the arts might constitute a potentially abundant and untapped resource on how the field of arts-in-health might be developed. For example, while my gurus do not have certifications in dance, or accreditation in medical care or the sciences, they have many decades of experience with, and insight into, the practice of the arts, and how that practice impacts personal health and well-being. Their expertise is guided by and adds to the wealth of information that came before them. The Clift et al. article 2 includes a review of a randomized controlled trial investigating the benefit of dance-movement therapy in adolescent girls [7]. This paper correctly reports several methodological flaws, including the lack of a clear rationale, issues with randomization, and the control condition [7]. Not included are any details or inquiries if any elder practitioners in the field of dance were consulted before designing, conducting, or evaluating the studies. The paper also mentions future steps in the field such as ensuring replication of data, and an interdisciplinary team to conduct systematic reviews and meta-analyses. I suggest that we add to this list, a summary of how input from elder practitioners was gathered.
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Where do we find these elders though? They have no interest in publishing in peer-reviewed journals or speaking at international venues. Instead, they are actively and quietly studying and teaching for decades, very often, as a generational vocation; they are continuing the work of their ancestors and adding to their legacy. This poses an exciting challenge for the scientific and research communities – how can we use our scientific knowledge to listen to and learn from our elders and teachers in respectful ways, that amplify their work, and not supplant or diminish it? How do we communicate our findings back to them in ways that can enrich what they do? For scientists, this approach is not new. To contribute to a field, we read books and articles on the topic, consult those who have worked and published before us, and actively add to the body of knowledge. An analogous approach, where researchers learn from those who came before them would be a good place to start to understand and describe the benefit of the arts-in-health.   

I had the pleasure of working with participants at the Independence Plaza Older Adult Center in Tribeca in NYC.  After a short demo, I talked about the benefits of dance in brain health, and then led the group through collective movement (some pictures below): 
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A participant said ​"I had a wonderful time seeing you dance. I think you noticed that I was smiling all the time. Thank you for making our afternoon happy. You are great. I was smiling because I was enjoying your dancing so much. I loved every movement. Thank you again. I am lucky to have met you. I could use some of those wonderful movement to help my body move better. I am 86 years old! Thank you again."

Image credit for pictures above: Joseph Mayock 

On May 4, 2025, I will invite Aravind Mallapudi of Hrudayam Arts and we will share about sculptures and their role in Bharatanatyam. We will discuss South Indian temple architecture, the role of temples in life (historically and currently), objects found in the temples and their significance. We will then explore the sculptures of three deities - Ganesha, Shiva, and Parvati - and bring alive their sculptures through dance. 

PC: Aravind Mallapudi (images below)

 PC: Tom Frambach (images below) 

Group poem
This song of mine will..
Enchant
Be sung for three generations
Be an eternal melody 
Be forever on your tastebuds 
Be on your wrist and be fragrant the room
​Be soft 

For the fourth session of "Moving Poetry: Indian Dance and Poetry" at the Kips Bay New York Public Library, we explored the theme of nature and its depiction in dance, through the poem "Over the green and yellow rice fields" by Rabindranath Tagore. 

Over the Green and Yellow Rice Fields
Rabindranath Tagore

Over the green and yellow rice-fields sweep the
shadows of the autumn clouds followed by the swift-
chasing sun.
The bees forget to sip their honey; drunken with
light they foolishly hover and hum.
The ducks in the islands of the river clamour in joy
for mere nothing.
Let none go back home, brothers, this morning, let
none go to work.
Let us take the blue sky by storm and plunder space
as we run.
Laughter floats in the air like foam on the flood.
Brothers, let us squander our morning in futile songs.

Flying High Together (Group poem)
Brothers and sisters, we shall... 

​Eat the rice for dinner,
Sing with joy,
Dance in the rice fields with the stalks,
Catch the fish, prawns, and crabs,
Go to work and go back home, 
Fly high with bees and ducks, 
Meditate. 

For the third session of "Moving Poetry: Indian Dance and Poetry" at the Kips Bay New York Public Library, we explored the theme of rhythm through the poem "The Same Stream of Life" by Rabindranath Tagore. 

The Same Stream of Life 
Rabindranath Tagore
 
The same stream of life that runsthrough my veins night and day runs
through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy
through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and
breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world
of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

Rhythms of Life (Group poem)
Sirens, traffic, traffic lights, taxis honking 
Day and night, the subway 
Pedestrians walking, bicycles 
The rhythm of nature, leaves, flowers, birds
Construction, doors opening and closing, beeping
Cellphones, conversations, and music. 

One of the reasons Bharatanatyam is so suited for older adults is that it gives a way to build on complexity of movement in a modular way.  Simpler movements can be combined together to create something longer, giving participants a sense of accomplishment. 
The video below comprises a pattern that we learned in this sequence:  we first learned the rhythm (3 steps + 1 gap), the sollu (the way the rhythm is articulated and spoken), feet movements, hand movements, and then hands in four different directions. At any time, participants can choose to pick all, some, or none of the modalities, as watching is also considered a part of dance in Bharatanatyam. We also did these movements in different speeds, adding an additional layer of complexity.