This Is Your Brain Dance

How dance is improving the lives of people with neurocognitive and movement disorders such as Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and brain injury

- Claire Sibonney

WEARING ALL BLACK and sitting on a tufted white ottoman in her sparse and sunlit living room, Toronto-based Sarah Robichaud is teaching a modern ballet-inspired routine to a group of 80 students on Zoom.

The Bolshoi-trained dancer spreads her arms wide in exaggerated movements to a slow cover version of the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" as her students replicate the routine. "We're just going to start with a gentle sway, back and forth," she tells them. "I want you to imagine that there's a thread attached to your wrist and someone's pulling that thread from side to side."

Many of Robichaud's students are seated, as well. More than half of them have Parkinson's disease and typically move with difficulty, but when they try to mirror her fluid and graceful movements, a look of ease comes over them.

"It's profound," says Robichaud, the founder of Canada's non-profit Dancing With Parkinson's program, which offers free daily dance classes online and in person. "I've been doing this for 16 years, and every week at some point while I'm teaching I'll catch a glimpse of one of the dancers, and I literally have to choke back my tears."

With growing evidence that dancing helps boost brain health and manage symptoms of neurocognitive and movement disorders, including Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's, dementia and even brain injury, accessible dance programs and movement therapists around the world are helping improve the lives of millions.

Robichaud has seen the benefits first-hand. After she took an innovative teaching program at the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York in 2007, she started Dancing With Parkinson's to give back to her community in Toronto.