Movement is the Method: Dancing Inroads to Creative Care (2026-2027)
Background
As dementia rates continue to rise in Durham, community organizations, clinics and families face growing challenges. Older adults often experience increased isolation, and care partners and clinicians report burnout. At the same time, practicing artists are being called upon more frequently to lead creative, participatory activities in care settings. Yet few training pathways prepare artists to adapt their craft for clinical, community or residential care environments, and arts schools often lack coursework in arts and health.
In many care systems, scientific or economic models dominate discussions about the benefits of arts in health. Far less attention has been paid to the practical mechanics by which movement and dance practices deliver meaningful, culturally responsive engagement for people living with dementia and cognitive change. This project responds to these gaps by pairing the expertise of master movement facilitators with emerging arts and health fellows, building training tools and partnerships across Durham and Duke.
Project Description
This project team will pilot a dance-based component of a future multi-arts Creative Care Curriculum — a free, accessible collection of adaptable “movement recipes,” training tools and mentorship resources for use across Durham care settings. The program will embed arts and health fellows in clinical, community, cultural and residential sites that serve people living with dementia and cognitive change. Together with master movement facilitators, fellows will co-create, test and refine a set of open-source teaching tools to support creative, culturally responsive care.
Team members will participate in mentorship, curriculum development and site-based program delivery. Activities will include co-designing movement recipes, testing facilitation approaches, supporting evaluation and documentation and collaborating with site partners to reflect on cultural fit, accessibility and sustainability.
Research methods will include observations, reflective journals, session logs, brief interviews, fidelity and responsiveness checklists and pre/post self-efficacy measures for artist fellows. The team will deliver approximately 60 movement sessions across Durham County, reaching an estimated 120 older adults with cognitive change and 60 care partners or staff.
Anticipated Outputs
- 20 publicly accessible movement “recipes” with instructional cards, optional Spanish translations, safety notes and adaptations
- Digital pilot of the Creative Care Curriculum with clear creator attribution
- Delivery of 60 movement sessions at Durham care sites
- Training workshops for approximately 30 care partners and staff
- Project summary report and public presentations through ChoreoLAB and the Bass Connections Showcase
Student Opportunities
Ideally, this project team will include 2-4 graduate students and 4-8 undergraduate students.
Undergraduates with interests in dance, creative arts, health, community engagement, design or digital storytelling are encouraged to apply. Students who have taken Dance 371 or participated in arts and health programming at Duke (such as ReImagining Medicine) may be especially well prepared. Personal experience with dementia care — whether through family or community — is valued.
Students will gain exposure to:
- Adaptive and culturally responsive movement facilitation
- Designing and revising movement activities
- Consent practices in care settings
- Session documentation and observation
- Video captioning, digital content creation and translation support
- Arts and health career pathways
Graduate students (especially from dance, arts and health, occupational therapy or pre-licensure health programs) will gain experience in:
- Mentorship design and supervision
- Project planning and documentation
- Ethical arts and health practice
- Evaluation and plain-language reporting
- Digital resource development
Biweekly team meetings will supplement course sessions, with graduate and undergraduate students working together across functional roles such as curriculum liaison, community liaison, artist liaison, evaluation liaison and communications liaison.
Timing
Fall 2026 – Spring 2027
Fall 2026:
- Onboarding, site agreements and contracting
- Coursework in Dance 371
- Literature and program review
- Mentorship activities
- Co-design and testing of movement recipe formats
- Scheduling of spring site programming
Spring 2027:
- Coursework in Dance 390/790S
- Delivery of 60 movement sessions across 6-8 Durham sites
- Ongoing evaluation and refinement
- Publication of the Creative Care Curriculum library
- Final project summary and public presentations
Crediting
Academic credit available for fall and spring semesters; students are strongly encouraged to take DANCE 371 (fall) and DANCE 390/790 (spring)