In March 2023, I will work with medical students, staff/faculty at NYULMC/Bellevue, public health students, dentistry students, and nursing students as part of NYU's humanistic medicine program to explore the emotions surrounding caregiving. 

Bharatanatyam has in it codified an array of emotions, called “rasas”. The nine rasas (“Navarasa”) include love, laughter, sorrow, anger, courage, fear, disgust, wonder, and peace. While Bharatanatyam is a form rooted in tradition, the emotions laid out are relevant even today, and perhaps more so.
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In this workshop, participants will explore the various emotions they feel while taking care of their patients. By bringing in rhythm, movement, melody, and music, we will explore aspects of caregiving through the language of dance. 

The title of this workshop is "​Rasas of Caregiving: Healing through Dance". 
The workshop was incredibly well received. The main area of addition/improvement was to include exercises for people to apply their knowledge of Bharatanatyam to thinking about and processing their own experiences with patients or caregiving.

In September of 2022, I was invited to speak as a keynote speaker at the Parents as Teachers 2022 conference in Denver (the video is here). Additionally, an article about this work can be found here. 
I shared these with a colleague who is a caregiver and takes dance lessons from me at Goddard Riverside Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC), and here is his testimonial: 

• "Thanks for sharing your article on caregiving with focus on parents caring for children and its implication on how this interaction can impact neural connections and network on both the parent or caregiver and the child the care receiver. I like the way you demonstrate the link between art and its impact on the brain. I think ultimately caregiving from parents to children and its mutual impact on the brain, can be extended to caring among any two mutual interactions, children and elders, people and pets, caring for people in need, people in love, or even for some caring for art or inanimate objects, as long as it is triggered by genuine love for it. The plasticity and elasticity of brain, as you have pointed out, is malleable from any input be it caregiving, Love or even something totally opposite of it..." ​