As a young dancer, SarahJane Burton performed on Broadway. But the Guelph dancer says the most rewarding work she has ever done is teaching people with Parkinson’s disease how to dance.
Burton runs a new group that recently launched in Guelph called Park N’ Dance. It’s based on a practice developed by Dance for PD, which originated at the Mark Morris Dance Centre in Brooklyn, New York about 15 years ago.
“It’s the most rewarding thing I have ever done,” said Burton, who danced on Broadway with American entertainers like Ray Bolger and Margaret Hamilton, under choreographer Agnes de Mille. “I feel like that was another life.”
Shortly after retiring as a movement and dance instructor at Sheridan College a year ago, Burton studied the Dance for PD method in Brooklyn. She started a local group. There is a similar program in Cambridge, and several in Toronto. All instructors for the Dance for PD program are required to be professional dance teachers. The program has spread to dozens of countries.
“I thought, this is such a beautiful way for me to give back to my community doing something that I love,” she said. “What I needed to do was become more familiar with people with Parkinson’s, because this program is specifically for them.”
Dance is considered a transformative activity for people with Parkinson’s, Burton said, and that has been witnessed in the early days of her program in Guelph.
About ten people with Parkinson’s have signed up to be a part of the dance lessons offered by Burton through Park N’ Dance, held in a meeting room in the Village of Arbour Trails. Both people with Parkinson’s and their partners or caregivers can take part. The latter are required to dance. Burton said process is pure joy for both.
The pilot session features eight weeks of lessons. Each lesson is $10. Call 519-763-3549, or email to [email protected] to learn more or participate. Burton recommends that people watch a special Dance for PD video on the process, available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sqo5fZ_H5A, and to learn more about the group at http://danceforparkinsons.org/about-the-program.
Burton said people with Parkinson’s have mobility challenges. Symptoms of the disease include tremors or shaking, slowed movement, rigid muscles and impaired posture and balance. The combination of live music and dance movements brings a degree of fluidity back to the body. Extensive medical research has been conducted into a phenomenon Burton called inspiring.
“Sometimes there’s a bit of difficulty getting started to walk, but as soon as you put the music on they can do the pattern that you are doing,” Burton said. “And however they move, it is right. There is no wrong movement.”
The live music for Park N’ Dance is provided by local music legend James Gordon, also a Guelph city counsellor. Burton stressed that Park N’ Dance is a dance class, not a therapy session, even though the therapeutic benefits, things like flexibility, coordination and strength, are apparent.
“I’m such a believer in dance, what it can do,” said Burton. “A dance and neuroscience is a very hot subject right now, things like the benefits of dancing for the plasticity of the brain.”
She said something happens in the neurological pathways of the brain when music is played in combination with dance. The body, even of someone restricted by Parkinson’s, follows the rhythm and flows with it.
“You’re not thinking of any of your disabilities,” Burton said. “You’re thinking of following the movement and creating your own movement. Somehow using the brain in that fashion helps override the symptoms. I certainly don’t know what’s happening in the brain, but something is.”
