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For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about pursuing medicine and dance. At Duke I’ve found ways to engage in those separately as a pre-medical biology major and a dance minor and member of the Dancing Devils. But I found that combining the two through Dance Expressions and Dance for Parkinson’s Disease, my training in one discipline could inform the other and the whole became greater than the sum of the parts.
In particular, my Dance for Parkinson’s Disease internship this past summer funded by DukeEngage and the Benenson Award in the Arts opened my eyes to just how important interdisciplinary work between artists and healthcare could be. In the context of Parkinson’s where previously automatic movements may pose an ever-growing challenge as the disease progresses, participants learning to dance with balance, expressivity, and creative movement solutions can impact their quality of life. I am currently writing a thesis in dance describing the culture of care surrounding the Dance for PD program.
These experiences are why I am so interested in promoting STEAM collaborations as the VP of Collaborations for duARTS and championing access to dance for those who, due to a variety of factors, would otherwise be unable to have access to training.
