Photo credit: Nuria Rius
Dear friend,
As I sit down to write this, I find myself thinking about the chapter we are entering at DanceStream Projects and about how deeply grateful I am to be entering it with all you.
Our first-ever gala, Many Stories, One Dance, gave me an opportunity I will carry with me for a long time: to see our community reflected back to me.
For one evening, I could step out of the day-to-day work and witness what has been growing around us. I saw the artists, participants, care partners, community partners, researchers, advocates, donors, volunteers, friends, and supporters who have each said yes to this work in their own way. I saw the intention that started DanceStream beginning to take shape as something larger—a movement, a community, a shared practice of care.
And I felt a dance of emotions.
Humility at witnessing the generosity and trust that so many of you have brought to this journey. Gratitude for the individual acts of care that, gathered together, become something powerful. And I felt moved by the joy we create together.
The evening also helped me name something I have been feeling for some time: DanceStream is a connector.
We are building bridges between science and health, art and research, lived experience and new ideas, institutions and communities. But underneath all of those connections are the fundamental values that drive us: care, creativity, authentic connection, and belonging.
This is something we continue to shape with one another.
This month has continued to present opportunities to reflect on what the gala illuminated - the values and vision DanceStream has set out to carry into our work every week, starting with the United Nations’ International Day of Older Persons this month. The conversations invited us to rethink what it means to live longer lives, not simply by adding years, but by creating the conditions for purpose, dignity, agency, connection, and participation across the life course. Returning throughout the event, was the question: What would you like to do versus what can you still do?
This question so simply introduces a paradigm shift that moves us away from existing to thriving; a perspective that holds dignity and agency at its core and is deeply aligned with the work we do every week.
My conversation with Dr. Virginia Sturm on our Dancing into Brain Health Podcast about the social brain, empathy, emotion, awe, art, and connection, illuminated the many ways that our capacity to connect is part of what makes us human. This conversation invited me to consider: if the social brain remains plastic throughout our lives, how might we nurture it through creativity, movement, awe, and connection?
Which is a question the play, UnRavelled, a story about creativity, empathy, frontotemporal dementia, and hope, carries at its center. Joining this wonderful team to expand access to the play across New York City, reminded me again that art can open doors into questions that science and healthcare alone cannot answer—and that stories become more powerful when we have opportunities to enter them, respond to them, and make them our own.
All of these experiences are giving me energy for what comes next.
I feel invigorated. Inspired. And deeply confident that what we are building together can continue to grow in ways that remain grounded in the values that brought us here in the first place.
There is so much ahead: read this month’s issue to learn about upcoming events in November for National Caregiver Month as well as open community events across Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx as part of our Raising Our Voices project.
Also this month, we share a new conversation with Daniel Brown of Simon Care, exploring what dementia care might become when it is designed around what people actually need and value, and when technology, creativity, movement, and human connection are part of that vision.
I hope you will join us for what is coming.
And as we enter this next chapter, I want you to know this: I am committed to doing everything I can to help DanceStream flourish.
Thank you for saying yes, for trusting this work and for bringing your care, creativity, generosity, and joy into it.
There is still so much to imagine. And I am so grateful that we get to imagine, and build, it together.
With gratitude and hope,
