Growing Our Community - Moving Together for Brain Health
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.
As part of our ongoing collaboration, we are connecting with communities across NYC—particularly Latino and African American communities who experience a disproportionately higher risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias compared to non-Hispanic white populations — to create welcoming spaces where people can dance together, learn about actions that support brain health, connect with trusted clinical resources, and discover opportunities to participate in research.
We always start with conversations about brain health, research and the hope we see in how lifestyle changes, including embracing dance and movement, make real changes in brain health. And then we try these ideas out in shared dance, movement and connection.
When we asked participants how they felt after dancing together, they shared:
Relaxed. Unity. Pain relief. Happy. Light. Calm. Connection. Energy. Concentration. Connecting the mind and the body.
When we asked how the experience supported their brain health, one participant put it simply:
“We are using our minds and exercising.”
Participants recognized something important: brain health isn't separate from the rest of our health. It lives in the relationship between our minds and bodies, in physical activity, in attention and concentration, and in the social connections we create with one another.
Through these gatherings, we are also creating opportunities for participants to learn about actions that can support cognitive health, connect with trusted clinical resources, and learn about research opportunities—including studies that need greater participation from the communities they are designed to serve.
This is an area where your language matters.
We believe communities should have opportunities not only to benefit from brain-health research, but to help shape it.
By connecting community members with the NYU Langone ADRC, we hope to make research more accessible, understandable, and relevant—and to support greater representation of Latino and African American communities in studies that can shape the future of cognitive health.
These communities are true experts in their lived experience and they are telling us what they want to see.
When we asked: What would you like to see next?
“More opportunities for connection.”
“Dance and empathy.”
“Things that help our health.”
Perhaps the most important feedback was also the simplest:
“More meetings like this.”
We couldn't agree more.
Brain health isn't something we build alone. It is shaped by the ways we move, connect, learn, care for ourselves and one another, and participate in our communities.
We are grateful to Sunnyside Community Services, Sunset Park Older Adult Center, the NYU Langone ADRC, and—most importantly—the community members who danced, shared, listened, and imagined what could come next with us.
More movement. More connection. More communities at the table.
Together, we're moving toward a more inclusive future for brain health.
This article was featured in the August 2026 Dancing into Brain Health Newsletter.