The dancers at Mark Morris’ Brooklyn studios are rehearsing excerpts from “Four Saints in Three Acts.” But as they move to the Gertrude Stein lyrics — grouping together like figures on ancient pottery — here and there a hand flutters in a way Morris hadn’t choreographed.
The dancers have Parkinson’s disease. And not only have they learned to dance with it, they’re about to perform.
The group, Dance for PD, started 11 years ago as the brainchild of Olie Westheimer, the director of the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. She’d studied dance when she was younger, and searched for ideas to help her clients.
“Someone described the steps of how she managed to stand up and go to the kitchen, and the sequence was like how I learned to do a pirouette,” recalls Westheimer, 70. “This is the solution, I thought. We have to dance!”
Scientific research seems to back her up. “The neurons that control automatic movement are compromised in Parkinson’s — and they are related to mood as well,” she says. “Dancing, its rhythm and imagery, [helps] someone move more easily.”
Right around the time of her brainstorm, Morris’ company had just moved into a new building down the block from BAM and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group. Soon, his dancers were offering free classes to PD patients that helped them with balance and coordination.
Now there are more than 40 affiliated groups in seven countries, and some of the original students have moved beyond class to performance.
One of them is Carroll Neesemann, a 71-year-old retired lawyer. Five years ago, he saw Morris’ company perform “Mozart Dances,” a work of gentle circles and snaking lines.
Neesemann went up to program director David Leventhal and said, “I want to do that.” Neesemann, a hulking ex-Marine, is not someone you’d say no to.
It’s on the bill tomorrow, and he’s in it.
There’ll be five short pieces in all, accompanied by live piano music and singers.
Dancing is a small victory for everyone involved.
“What I do every time I come to class is celebrate,” Carol Enseki, a trim 58-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair, says of her weekly dance lessons.
“Parkinson’s doesn’t discriminate,” observes Maria Portman Kelly, who began to volunteer with the PD group because her father was afflicted. “It brings together people who might never have crossed paths — a weird silver lining.”
The disease affects people differently. Some PD dancers move with difficulty and without expression. With others, the symptoms are less noticeable, especially when they’re in motion. When the piano plays, Enseki seems transported, sweeping back and forth.
Leventhal adapts Morris’ choreography for the group — staying loyal to the movement, but allowing the dancers to follow through without a struggle. Because Parkinson’s can affect memory, there are two pros among the amateurs to keep things on track.
But tomorrow’s performance isn’t about the steps you’ll see onstage: It’s about the journey it took to get there. If you look only with your eyes and not with your heart, you’ll miss the real dancing.
Dance for PD performs tomorrow at 3 p.m. at the Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. Admission is free. For information about tickets or classes, visit danceforpd.org or call 646-450-3373.