Dance Well

Dance Well – movement research for Parkinson’s was born with the aim of including people with Parkinson’s disease through contemporary dance in the artistic and social life of their territories. It is an initiative promoted since 2013 by the Municipality of Bassano del Grappa with its CSC – Centro per la Scena Contemporanea, member of the European Dancehouse Network. The classes, free of charge and open to all, are held at the Museum of Bassano del Grappa. The Dance Well classes reached other locations in the province of Vicenza, and they are now held also at Teatro Civico in Schio, and at Villa Margherita in Arcugnano. The practice spread around Italy and around the world and nowadays, classes are held also in Turin, Rome, Florence, Verona (Italy) and in Tokyo, Kyoto and Kanazawa (Japan). The artistic spaces where they take place, and the source of inspirations that the context brings, distinguish the initiative from many others held in traditional dance studios, rehabilitation rooms or gyms. To underline with even more clarity that Dance Well is an artistic practice, participants are called Dance Well dancers. Several Dance Well teachers lead the classes throughout the year, bringing diverse approaches and styles with their artistic proposals and involving the Dance Well dancers into the summer festival programme of the city.
Every summer an intensive Dance Well teaching course is held in Bassano del Grappa, for people with a strong artistic background in dance that would like to become Dance Well teachers. The practice has been investigated and monitored by a team of researchers from Casa di Cura Villa Margherita in Arcugnano, a leader on Parkinson studies and part of the NYU Fresco Institute for Italy.