Connect & Flow groups are participatory, caring, artistic community spaces where people dance and move together as a creative response to life with Parkinson’s.

Whereas the expressive elements of dance promote creative flow, self-efficacy, communication, and enjoyment to enhance wellbeing, the embodied and connective practices of somatic movement education (SME) emphasise the importance of moving with awareness, with enhanced sensory-motor engagement regulating health in the soma or living body.

When health and wellbeing diminish, people with Parkinson’s may feel physically and emotionally stuck, anxious, or in a low mood. Re-connecting body and mind through creative movement and building relationships with others in the world by dancing together, enhances physical, cognitive, emotional, and social flow states, with benefits to health and wellbeing. The healthy benefits of Connect & Flow groups ripple out to family members and friends, volunteers, and dance/movement artists, creating arts-based communities of care.