DanceStream Projects

🤝Join the Movement! #IDance4BrainHealth 🧠 🎉Help us make noise on the internet. To participate you only have to: 1. Follow us on Instagram 2. Upload your own reel telling the world why you dance, don’t forget to tag us @dancestream_projects and use the hashtag #IDance4BrainHealth 🙏Thank you for supporting us! With your help, we can reach more older adults and people living with dementia and spread awareness on the benefits of movement for brain health.

DanceStream Projects has a mission to spark brain health and build creative communities through the power of dance and movement. This monthly newsletter will help you stay informed with the latest news and updates on our programming, meet our community partners and dive into curated content on the latest arts and health research and advocacy with a lens on how dance extends brain health and dignity of older persons and people living with dementia! Enjoy and please subscribe! Link in our bio and on our website!

Hi! We’re delighted for you to meet us! We are a non-profit arts and health organization in NYC, dedicated to sparking brain health and building creative communities through dance and movement. By bridging the arts, science, and community, we create opportunities for everyone to support their brain health through the universal language of dance. All of us at DanceStream Projects believe that dance is a powerful vehicle for brain health, wellbeing and community. Inspired by our founder @magdakacz2013 ‘s passion for bridging neuroscience and dance, all of our programs emphasize a partnership between the arts, the sciences and community. Join us in shifting the narrative of aging and dementia from one of loss to one of growth, complexity, and hope. Let’s inspire awareness, agency, and access to brain health through the shared language of dance. #DanceStreamProjects #BrainHealth #CreativeCommunities #DanceForWellbeing *DanceStream Projects is a fiscally sponsored nonprofit entity through New York Live Arts.

“Don’t think that because we are 60+, that we are out of service. We are dancing in our power!” This Older Americans Month, we celebrate the wisdom, creativity, resilience, and vitality older adults bring to every part of our communities. Led by the Administration for Community Living since 1963, Older Americans Month is a time to honor the many ways older adults continue to shape and strengthen our collective future. This year’s theme, “Champion Your Health,” highlights prevention, wellness, and personal responsibility as foundations for healthy aging. In celebration of this theme, we are honored to share reflections from participants in our Rainbow Stories Dance Program in partnership with the Queens Center for Gay Seniors. Their voices remind us that dance is far more than movement — it is connection, empowerment, expression, joy, and community care. Through dance, they are nurturing not only their own wellbeing, but the wellbeing of those around them. At DanceStream Projects, we believe that every person deserves the opportunity to move, connect, and age with dignity, creativity, and belonging. Our hope is that we may continue dancing together to spark brain health, nurture wellbeing, and help shape a future we all want to grow older into — together. #OlderAmericansMonth #ChampionYourHealth #DanceForBrainHealth #HealthyAging #CommunityCare

We are delighted to announce that DanceStream Projects is a 2026 Queens Arts Fund recipient! This project-based grant will enable DanceStream Projects artists to partner with Queens Center for Gay Seniors, QCH Senior Adult Day Services and Jamaica Older Adults Center to co-create the Raising Our Voices project this Summer and Fall! Over the course of 4 months, this project will nurture a shared language through dance and poetry between diverse Queens-based elders and individuals living with dementia, offering their reflections on aging and navigating brain change in community, and sharing their vision for a dementia-inclusive Queens. Visit nyfa.org/news for details, and follow #QAF2026 for details on when and where you can experience the arts in Queens this calendar year! Thank you @nyfacurrent and @nyculture , for supporting our work and for helping to bring the arts to neighborhoods across Queens! And so excited to celebrate with all the other awardees and panelists tonight! Thank you @lacumbiambany for the music!

“These are not vulnerable people… these are vulnerated people.” In this moment from our latest episode of Dancing into Brain Health, industrial and inclusive designer Macarena Espina Díaz shares the deeply personal lens that shapes her work. Her story is rooted in lived experience—and in a commitment to feel with the people she designs for. Because in inclusive design, empathy isn’t optional. It’s the practice of putting yourself in someone else’s position… truly seeing what they see. When we begin to understand the experiences of people living with dementia and their families—not as distant observers, but as humans navigating unjust systems—everything about how we design can change. ✨ What if we approached our environments this way? ✨ What would it mean to design with people, not just for them? 🎧 Watch the full episode—link in bio. 💬 What did this perspective shift for you? #InclusiveDesign #BrainHealth #DementiaAwareness #DesignWithEmpathy #HealthEquity

Healing Arts New York Spotlight ✨ Rainbow Stories in the Moment: A a dance, fitness and storytelling program for LGBTQIA+ elders and allies. @dancestream_projects Tuesdays through May 26 | 12:30PM Rainbow Stories in the Moment® is a dance, fitness and storytelling program for LGBTQIA+ elders and allies. The program grew out of a desire to extend the benefit of dance on brain health, physical agility and wellbeing to communities of older adults who identify as LGBTQIA+. Older adults who identify as LGBTQIA+ are almost 30% more likely to develop dementia, so Rainbow Stories in the Moment® was developed as an arts and health initiative and social practice project to partner with LGBTQIA+ elders to not only build community and amplify belonging but also engage in activities that are known to modify risk for dementia and support brain health. Our thanks to the @lmtischfund and @jameelartshealthlab Lab Partners: @whoeurope @communityjameel @nyusteinhardt @culturunners @nychealthsystem 📝 All the details → Link in bio 🗣 Feature an event → Link in bio 🤝🏼 Join the network → Link in bio

🎧 Now Live: Season 2, Episode 5 of Dancing into Brain Health What if the spaces we live in could actively support our brain health—and our sense of dignity, autonomy, and connection? In this episode, we’re joined by industrial designer and Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, Macarena Espina Díaz, whose work reimagines how inclusive, human-centered design can transform the lives of people living with dementia. From co-creating community-driven solutions in Chile to helping envision Ireland’s first brain health–focused intergenerational housing, Macarena invites us to consider how our environments—both social and physical—shape wellbeing across the lifespan. ✨ Together, we explore: • What inclusive design really means • How environments can better support people living with dementia • The power of collaboration across communities, policy, and design • Simple ways we can all engage more intentionally with the spaces around us This conversation is a powerful reminder that brain health is not just biological—it’s deeply relational, environmental, and shared. 🎧 Listen now via the link in bio or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube #BrainHealth #InclusiveDesign #DementiaAwareness #HealthyAging #DesignForAll

We are a team. 💛 As spring unfolds here in New York City—full of beauty, unpredictability, and constant change—we’re reminded that our brain health is shaped not only from within, but by the environments we create together. In this month’s newsletter, we reflect on how small, intentional moments—of empathy, design, and co-creation—can transform how we care for one another. Inspired by a recent conversation with dementia-inclusive designer Macarena Espina Díaz, and grounded in what we witness each week in Stories in the Moment®, this edition explores how inclusive, brain-healthy environments are built—together. Inside this month: ✨ Shaping a future environment for dementia care — reflections from the inaugural CaringKind Conference ✨ UnRavelling Creativity — highlights from Dancing into Brain Health with Dr. Bruce Miller & Jake Broder ✨ Save the date (May 4!) — Macarena Espina Díaz on co-designing inclusive environments ✨ Sneak peeks of upcoming community dance projects (Queens Arts Fund) ✨ Advocacy in action — championing the arts across Queens & NYC ✨ Join us in May — upcoming programs & ways to get involved 🔗 Read the full newsletter (link in bio) 📫 Follow us via the link in bio to explore events, partners, and the latest in arts + health 🤲 Thank you for being part of this community—we look forward to connecting with you soon #BrainHealth #CreativeAging #DementiaInclusion #ArtsInHealth #communitycare

No two people experience dementia in the same way. In this clip from our upcoming episode, industrial designer and Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health Macarena Espina Díaz reminds us that truly supportive environments must be designed with human variability at their core. Whether honing into how we respond to stimuli or how we move through and relate within spaces, our differences matter. 🧠 What does it mean to design for dignity, flexibility, and real lived experience? Tune in to the Dancing into Brain Health podcast on Monday, May 4 for a conversation that bridges design, research, and community. Together, we explore how inclusive, human-centered environments can support brain health across the lifespan and enhance quality of life for people living with dementia. Follow us and stay tuned for the full episode airing in Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube on Monday May 4 #BrainHealth #DementiaAwareness #InclusiveDesign #DesignForAll #AgingWell

What if one of the most powerful ways to support brain health is through connection across generations? In this clip from Dancing into Brain Health Season 2, Episode 4, renowned behavioral neurologist Dr. Bruce Miller reflects on the genetic and neurological benefits of intergenerational relationships—especially the vital role of grandparents and “grandfamilies.” As we celebrate Global Intergenerational Week (April 24–30), we’re reminded that creativity, care, and connection don’t happen in isolation—they grow through relationship. Connecting across generations expands perspective, helping us see beyond the superficial and recognize the depth of experience and value each person brings. In the full episode, this lens extends to the experience of dementia through the story of artist Anne Adams—inviting us to move beyond deficit-based narratives and instead witness the surprising emergence of creativity in the face of neurodegeneration. 🎧 Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Miller and award-winning actor and writer Jake Broder 🔗 Link in bio 🔔 Follow for more conversations at the intersection of brain health, the arts, and dementia advocacy #DancingIntoBrainHealth #GlobalIntergenerationalWeek #GIW26 #BrainHealth #dementiaawareness

“Art is a good excuse to bring people together.” And what happens when it does? Through the Brain Health Festival, offered alongside the play, UnRavelled, something powerful begins to unfold—researchers, clinicians, artists, and those navigating dementia come into shared space. Not as separate silos, but as a community. ✨ Connection deepens ✨ Access to resources and understanding expands ✨ And a collective sense of agency begins to take shape This is what it looks like when art opens the door—not just to conversation, but to collaboration, imagination, and change. 🎭 This clip is just a glimpse. 🎧 Listen to the full episode of the Dancing into Brain Health Podcast to hear playwright, actor and Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health Jake Broder in conversation with Dr Bruce Miller and our host, Magda Kaczmarska. Together they explore how these intersections are reshaping what’s possible in dementia care and community. 🔗 Link in bio #DancingIntoBrainHealth #ArtsInHealth #DementiaCare #CreativeAging #ArtForChange