"Adaptive Dance for Creative Aging" at Training Institute for Arts-in-Healthcare and Creative Aging

"Adaptive Dance for Creative Aging" at Training Institute for Arts-in-Healthcare and Creative Aging 

March 2026: For The Creative Center's training institute for teaching artists, I will lead a session on my work with Bharatanatyam and creative aging. Participants will learn the benefits of movement, specifically dance, for the brain and body. I will introduce Bharatnatyam – a dance form that consists of a codified vocabulary of hand gestures and expressions and a strong narrative focus. I will show how I have adapted this 2,000-year-old dance form for different settings and for those with varied mobility and share reflections on cultural humility while using traditional art forms like Bharatanatyam. We will also try a short piece together! Link to the Training Institute here. ​

Post-session reflections 

With over 45 participants, the session was a great success. A few testimonials: 

• "Such an engaging presentation!" 
• "I love the focus on gaze, facial expression, and gesture and how intricate each movement is but also adaptable to contemporary context and stories."
• ""I love the rhythms done through hands and feet and then having participants listen in the world for different rhythms."

On traditional art forms, I asked what comes to mind when thinking of traditional and indigenous systems of knowledge:

• Storytelling
• Cooking
• I used to weave because I learned it from my native American friend
• Book binding
• I used to dance Ballet folklorico, which is definitely influenced by Spanish colonization
• I think of art forms that have been passed down over generations
• Gardening
• Embroidery
• Quilting
• Hip hop dance
• I wonder about what it means to use these traditions in non-traditional contexts
• Theatre
• Attached to a place and culture
• Generational
• Chant circles
• Felt making
• Athletics
• Paper weaving
• Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show
• "The teaching of traditional and indigenous arts cannot necessarily be done in a classroom setting."