Movement Meets in partnership with Urbanity Dance
The OFA Dance Program is partnering with Urbanity Dance's Movement Meets program to provide opportunities for Harvard undergraduate students to gain skills and experiences teaching and administering dance classes geared towards healing and empowerment in a range of community and clinical settings. Participants draw from the power of movement through styles such as freestyle and improvisation, contemporary, and street dance to communicate, connect, and empathize with fellow community members – and to “meet” their challenge and find healing.
The program provides a dance and movement workshop series that empowers community members experiencing a range of life challenges to use dance to find their physical and emotional voices. The program places Harvard undergraduate students at various Movement Meets sites including Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, McLean Psychiatric Hospital, Horizons for Homeless Children, Pine Street Inn, and Boston Medical Center to be Teaching Assistants in the dance offerings.
A future goal of the program is to initiate medical research to advocate for movement/dance as a part of wrap-around medical care and wellness, especially in relation to specific physical and/or mental diagnosis. Movement Meets is currently in partnership with a research study at Dana Farber Cancer Institute studying dance as part of wrap-around care for post-mastectomy patients.
Urbanity Dance selects a Teaching Artist for each program who is personally connected to the challenge and provides them with specialized training to ensure they are teaching inclusive, trauma-informed classes and are able to make the adaptations necessary for the specific community with which they are working.
A specialized teacher training session will be offered at Harvard Dance Center on Friday, April 10, 3-5pm, for all volunteers prior to placements. Please RSVP!
Movement Meets partnerships include:
- Boston Combined Residency Program at Boston Children’s Hospital
- Boston Community Pediatrics
- Boston Medical Center
- Dana Farber
- Dance With Parkinson’s at Urbanity Dance
- Delta Projects
- Horizons for Homeless Children
- Movimiento en Sillas with Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) Boston
- The Jeremiah Program
- McLean Psychiatric Hospital
- Partners for Youth with Disabilities
- Pine Street Inn
- Roca Boston
- Senior Moves at Urbanity Dance
- Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital
- Victory Programs
- Youville House
From one-time workshops to ongoing weekly classes, the Movement Meets program customizes both the schedule and the curriculum to address the shared physical and emotional impacts of the group’s lived experiences.
Learn more about the Movement Meets program, what it means to be a volunteer, and the range of partnering sites!
Students interested in the program should fill out the interest form below to be contacted by Urbanity Dance.