Dementia is one of the defining public health challenges of our time. As Site Director of the Global Brain Health Institute at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Victor Valcour is helping cultivate a global network of leaders united by shared values and a common purpose of reducing the scale and impact of dementia worldwide.

In this thoughtful conversation, we explore who should be at the table to address global brain health equity, the steps to translate a vision into action and the role of humility in cultivating multi-disciplinary leaders.

We are delighted to share that DanceStream Projects has been selected as one of just 36 nonprofit arts organizations across New York State to participate in the 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Community Arts Leaders Program, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts with funding support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

A joyful day of movement, connection, and brain health! DanceStream Projects was honored to join the First Presbyterian Church Fall Festival alongside our friends at Jamaica Older Adult Center and Queens Community House.

On October 1, we’ll gather at Flushing Town Hall for Many Stories, One Dance—DanceStream Projects’ very first gala! It will be an evening of dance, stories, community, creativity, and brain health, celebrating the people who make this work possible and looking ahead to all that we can create together.

This September, as we mark World Alzheimer’s Month, we have been reflecting on what becomes possible when we look beyond a diagnosis and make space for the whole person—with all their creativity, stories, relationships, and agency. At DanceStream Projects, this question continues to shape our work and remind us that joy, connection, curiosity, and belonging are essential to healthy aging.

It has also been a month of meaningful growth for DanceStream—from being selected as one of 36 organizations across New York State for the 2026 NYSCA/NYFA Community Arts Leaders Program, to mentoring arts and health leaders from around the world, celebrating with our local communities, and preparing for our first gala, Many Stories, One Dance, on October 1.

In this month’s letter, we share some reflections on the people, partnerships, and possibilities that continue to move this work forward.

What if the benefits of dance extend beyond how we move our bodies—and into how we use our voices?

New research co-coordinated by Dr. Constantina Theofanopoulou and Dr. Aline Nogueira Haas, and led by Raquel Arigony C. S. Prates and colleagues, offers exciting new evidence exploring this question in people living with Parkinson’s disease.

What does brain health feel like?

At recent Brain Health Dance Socials with Sunnyside Community Services and Sunset Park Older Adult Center, DanceStream Projects and the NYU Langone Alzheimer's Disease Research Center invited community members to explore that question through shared movement.

In this issue, we explore the powerful connections between movement, language, and communication—from the poetry and dance emerging through our Raising Our Voices project to new research on dance, speech, and neurodegenerative disease.

We also celebrate the growing DanceStream Projects community and the many ways movement can create new pathways for connection, expression, and belonging.

In this episode of the Dancing into Brain Health podcast, we are joined by award-winning filmmaker, best-selling author, Certified Dementia Practitioner, and founder of Expose Dementia, Chuck Nathaniel Brown. Following his own family's experience with dementia, Chuck has dedicated his career to using film, literature, community engagement, and the arts to transform how we understand dementia—particularly within African American communities. 

Together, we explore the extraordinary role that the arts can play in increasing awareness, fostering dialogue, challenging stigma, and creating spaces where communities can learn, heal, and advocate together.

July has been a month of celebration and exciting new beginnings for DanceStream Projects.

We're thrilled to share that DanceStream Projects is now an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization—a milestone made possible by our incredible community of participants, teaching artists, partners, volunteers, board members, and supporters. As we also celebrated World Brain Day and this year's theme, Access for All, we were reminded that brain health grows wherever people come together to move, create, connect, and belong.

In this month's newsletter, you'll find updates on our new Raising Our Voices project, the latest Dancing into Brain Health podcast episode with neuroscientist Dr. Rona Graham, World Brain Day resources, and our August calendar of free programs.

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Rona Graham, a neuroscientist whose research explores olfactory function as an early biomarker for cognitive impairment.

Together, we unpack how this often-overlooked sensory process is intimately tied not only to the richness of our daily lives, but also to cognition, memory, and overall brain health.

Summer is here, and so is our latest newsletter!

Join us as we celebrate Pride Month and Alzheimer's & Brain Awareness Month while exploring how dance can foster brain health, belonging, creativity, and connection—from New York City to Poland and beyond.

In this episode of Dancing into Brain Health, we explore the fascinating intersection of dance, neuroscience, and communication with dancer and neuroscientist Dr. Constantina Theofanopoulou. Her groundbreaking research investigates the neural substrates of speech and the ways movement — particularly dance — may support, strengthen, and even rehabilitate our ability to communicate.

Together, we uncover how rhythm and movement may activate some of the brain’s deepest communication networks, opening new possibilities for understanding speech, connection, and the profound relationship between the moving body and the speaking mind.

In this month’s newsletter, we celebrate two important commemorations, Older Americans Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.

We invite you to reflect with us on what it means to care for our health not only physically, but emotionally, socially, and creatively. And what role and responsibility we play in holding spaces that sustain the bonds, experiences and opportunities that nurture these types of meaningful relationships. 

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month 2026, DanceStream Projects executive director Magda Kaczmarska sat down with Mark Timmons, artist, advocate and person living with dementia, for a conversation about the intersections of mental health and brain health.

In this episode of the Dancing into Brain Health Podcast, we are joined by Macarena Espina Díaz, whose work centers inclusivity and human-centered design, to cultivates social and physical spaces that uphold dignity and enhance quality of life for people living with dementia.

Together, we explore the importance of inclusive design—particularly for those living with dementia—and consider how each of us can engage more intentionally with our social and physical environments to support brain health for all.

In this month’s newsletter, we celebrate the partners and champions who are helping to build environments that spark brain health and nurture wellbeing - where all of us can truly thrive.

You’ll also find highlights from DanceStream Projects’ invitation to participate in the inaugural CaringKind Conference, updates on local advocacy efforts to ensure the arts continue to shape our communities, and a glimpse of exciting new projects unfolding across New York City.

In this episode of the Dancing into Brain Health Podcast, we are joined by behavioral neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller and actor and writer Jake Broder.

Together, they take us on a journey through the intersection of neuroscience, art, and lived human experience, inviting us to reconsider what creativity is, where it lives in the brain, and how it can persist, transform, and even flourish in the face of profound change.

This month we invite you to engage not only with emerging research, but with the voices of those whose lived experience bring that research to life. As Laurie Waters shared during her presentation at the Eden Alternative Conference: “Science gives us data, lived experience gives it meaning. Bridging the two is where understanding and hope is born.”

Our guest today on the Dancing into Brain Health Podcast is Michelle Memran, a documentary filmmaker and dementia advocate who has dedicated her life’s work to transforming these narratives. Through collaborative visual storytelling alongside individuals living with dementia, Michelle amplifies the voices that most need to be heard while transforming the entire ecosystem of what we perceive living with dementia can and should be.

Together we discuss her latest projects and consider the role of artists in collaboration with communities living with dementia to shape new narratives and inform social change.