To celebrate 20 years of innovative community programming, Dance for PD is hosting the Dance for PD Community Festival: Around the World, Around the Clock, a FREE 24-hour virtual celebration featuring classes, panel discussions, and film screenings that highlight the diversity and breadth of the Dance for PD family. I am so excited to demonstrate Bharatanatyam for PD on Friday, April 29th at 6 to 6:30 pm EST. You can register here. Since Parkinson's Disease is condition where movement is impacted, the PD community event dovetails really well with Episode 2 of Vichaar.

 In this episode, I will cover:

• A glimpse of movement and movement patterns in Bharatanatyam ranging from minute, subtle movements (e.g. saccadic movement of the eyes) to movements of the entire body 
• How the brain enables movement planning, initiation, sustenance, and termination
• That the brain ascribes meaning to movement, which shapes our individual and collective realities 

I hope you will join me on April 29th for a demonstration of Bharatanatyam in Parkinson's Disease, and to the second episode of Vichaar!  ​

A video of this demonstration on how Bharatanatyam can be used in those with Parkinson's can be found here. 

In Episode 1 of Vichaar, an online production exploring the convergence of dance and science, I give an introduction of the topics I aim to cover each week. Each month, I will take an aspect of Bharatanatyam (e.g. rhythm, movement, music) and talk about its neuroscientific basis. 
While it may seem that there is not much common between arts and the sciences, I feel that the disciplines are more alike than not. Here are a few thoughts from my work in Bharatanatyam and neuroscience:  

• Both neuroscience and Bharatanatyam have a framework and structure, and the job of practitioners like myself is to first, understand and learn this framework, and then create new works and discoveries. One might think this is stifling. How can any innovation and creativity happen at all? But as dancers and scientists, and people interested in arts and the sciences, know much innovation happens on a daily, hourly basis in both these disciplines. Practitioners of the sciences and the arts continue to build on the work of others in unique and creative ways.