EVENT KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
David Leventhal

Topic: Dance for PD

David Leventhal is a founding teacher and Program Director for Dance for PD®, a research-backed, award-winning program of the Mark Morris Dance Group that has been used as a model for classes in more than 300 communities in 30 countries. He leads classes for people living with Parkinson’s disease around the world and trains other teaching artists in the Dance for PD approach. He’s co-produced five volumes of a successful Dance for PD At Home instructional video series and helped conceive and design Moving Through Glass, a dance-based Google Glass App for people with Parkinson’s. He’s received multiple awards for his work, including the 2016 World Parkinson Congress Award for Distinguished Contribution to the Parkinson’s Community, and has written and published extensively about the intersection of dance and Parkinson’s. He designed and continues to lead a groundbreaking Narrative Medicine course for first-year medical students at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and is a regular guest lecturer at Tufts University’s Department of Occupational Therapy. As a dancer, he performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group from 1997-2011, appearing in principal roles in some of Mark Morris’ most celebrated works and receiving a 2010 Bessie Award for his performance career.